Northern Lights by Philip Pullman audiobook review – a mesmerising reading by Ruth Wilson

If you saw the BBC’s adaptation of His Dark Materials, you will remember Ruth Wilson stealing the show as the sinister Mrs Coulter. Now she is back narrating a new audio version of Northern Lights, the first book in the much-loved trilogy by Philip Pullman. Set in an alternative, intricately realised world where airships float through the sky and everyone has an animal – or daemon – that embodies their soul, it opens with 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua, an orphan raised at Jordan College, Oxford, witnessing the Master of the college slipping poison into some wine. That wine is intended for her uncle, Lord Asriel, an adventurer who has just returned from the frozen north to present the college faculty with his research on a mysterious substance called Dust. Lyra is able to warn him, thus saving his life.

Wilson gives a richly textured performance, taking on a lengthy cast of characters beginning with plucky Lyra, her daemon Pantalaimon, stern Asriel and assorted college scholars. After Asriel returns to the north, children begin to disappear around Oxford, allegedly stolen by a group called the “Gobblers”. Among those taken is Lyra’s best friend, Roger, leading Lyra to seek the help of Mrs Coulter, with whom she strikes up an uneasy friendship, and to embark on an expedition to the Arctic where she meets Iorek, an armoured polar bear.

Those wishing to hear the full trilogy will have to wait until next year, when recordings of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass are due for release. However, tacked on to the end of this recording is some tantalising bonus material: the first chapter of The Subtle Knife, once again read by Wilson.

• Available via Penguin Audio, 13hr 16min

Further listening

The Point of Distraction
Will Eaves, HarperCollins, 2hr 22min
The author and musician ponders the mystery of creativity and the intricacies of music-making through six piano pieces.

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne
Katherine Rundell, Faber, 8hr 41min
Rundell’s Baillie Gifford prize-winning biography of the 17th-century scholar and poet is read by Jamie Parker.