With The Golden Compass Philip Pullman garnered every accolade under the sun. Critics lobbed around such superlatives as "elegant," "awe-inspiring," "grand," and "glittering," and used "magnificent" with gay abandon. Each reader had a favorite chapter—or, more likely, several—from the opening tour de force to Lyra's close call at Bolvangar to the great armored-bear battle. And Pullman was no less profligate when it came to intellectual firepower or singular characters. The dæmons alone grant him a place in world literature. Could the second installment of his trilogy keep up this pitch, or had his heroine and her too, too sullied parents consumed him? And what of the belief system that pervaded his alternate universe, not to mention the mystery of Dust? More revelations and an equal number of wonders and new players were definitely in order.

The Subtle Knife offers everything we could have wished for, and more. For a start, there's a young hero—from our world—who is a match for Lyra Silvertongue and whose destiny is every bit as shattering. Like Lyra, Will Parry has spent his childhood playing games. Unlike hers, though, his have been deadly serious. This 12-year-old long ago learned the art of invisibility: if he could erase himself, no one would discover his mother's increasing instability and separate them.

As the novel opens, Will's enemies will do anything for information about his missing father, a soldier and Arctic explorer who has been very much airbrushed from the official picture. Now Will must get his mother into safe seclusion and make his way toward Oxford, which may hold the key to John Parry's disappearance. But en route and on the lam from both the police and his family's tormentors, he comes upon a cat with more than a mouse on her mind: "She reached out a paw to pat something in the air in front of her, something quite invisible to Will." What seems to him a patch of everyday Oxford conceals far more: "The cat stepped forward and vanished." Will, too, scrambles through and into another oddly deserted landscape—one in which children rule and adults (and felines) are very much at risk. Here in this deathly silent city by the sea, he will soon have a dustup with a fierce, flinty little girl: "Her expression was a mixture of the very young—when she first tasted the cola—and a kind of deep, sad wariness." Soon Will and Lyra (and, of course, her dæmon, Pantalaimon) uneasily embark on a great adventure and head into greater tragedy.

As Pullman moves between his young warriors and the witch Serafina Pekkala, the magnetic, ever-manipulative Mrs. Coulter, and Lee Scoresby and his hare dæmon, Hester, there are clear signs of approaching war and earthly chaos. There are new faces as well. The author introduces Oxford dark-matter researcher Mary Malone; the Latvian witch queen Ruta Skadi, who "had trafficked with spirits, and it showed"; Stanislaus Grumman, a shaman in search of a weapon crucial to the cause of Lord Asriel, Lyra's father; and a serpentine old man whom Lyra and Pan can't quite place. Also on hand are the Specters, beings that make cliff-ghasts look like rank amateurs.

Throughout, Pullman is in absolute control of his several worlds, his plot and pace equal to his inspiration. Any number of astonishing scenes—small- and large-scale—will have readers on edge, and many are cause for tears. "You think things have to be possible," Will demands. "Things have to be true!" It is Philip Pullman's gift to turn what quotidian minds would term the impossible into a reality that is both heartbreaking and beautiful. —Kerry Fried

"Pullman is fast becoming a modern-day Dickens for young adults. The setting

is the same, the strong eye for characters is there, as are the brooding

atmosphere, the social conscience, and the ability to spin plot within plot.

Sally Lockhart is now a young woman, left alone with a toddler. Nothing

prepares her for the shock of receiving a summons from a man she has never even

heard of, suing for divorce and the custody of her beloved Harriet. Sally

struggles against the net closing around her, seeking to find out who is

persecuting her and why. The writing style is lively and direct, and there's

lots of action. This is a suspense novel with a conscience, and a most

enjoyable one."—School Library Journal.

UNLIKE MOST VICTORIAN women, Sally is completely independent, with her own successful business and a comfortable home for her young daughter, Harriet. But Sally’s whole world is about to collapse. A stranger emerges, claiming to be both her husband and Harriet’s father and threatening all that she has.

Sally Lockhart's friend and partner-in-adventure Jim Taylor has just solved a mystery. For years he's been searching for Adelaide, the little girl enslaved by toothless crone Mrs Holland in The Ruby in the Smoke. And now he's found her - just as she's about to become a princess. Crown Princess of Razkavia, to be exact, and a princess in danger. Her future husband is desperate to protect his bride, and employs Jim as their bodyguard - Razkavia's quaint little streets are full of danger.

"How bad could it be?" With this simple question, Joe Queenan embarks on a nightmare journey through the depths of American pop culture, subjecting himself to Broadway musicals, Red Lobster Captains' Feasts, and John Tesh concerts: "With his shopworn, lounge-lizard stage gestures, eviscerated salsa compositions, and studied reveries, Tesh was a human Cuisinart of every hack musical stunt, effecting a strange synthesis of various mongrel styles where half the songs sounded like generic background music for promotional videos ... and the other half sounded like retreads of Mason Williams's sixties hit Classical Gas."

Queenan sets out to find music, movies, books, and TV that transcend awful, and the most remarkable thing about this book is that one never doubts for a moment that he actually subjected himself to all of the horrors he describes (including the literary efforts of Joan Collins). In an era where references to Burt Reynolds movies are used as hipster currency by people who have never endured Cannonball Run II, Queenan mocks nothing without experiencing it first. His odyssey throws up a few surprises—including the discovery that Barry Manilow is actually pretty good, and that most of the junk that clogs the arteries of popular culture never reaches the stratospheric level of badness achieved by someone like Michael Bolton. This leads Queenan to coin the term scheissenbedauern ("shit regret") to describe "the disappointment one feels when exposed to something that is not nearly as bad as one hoped it would be."

But generally, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the book is "Really, really bad." Making fun of bad middlebrow entertainment may seem like a no-brainer, but when a writer as sharp as Queenan gets his claws into something like the collected works of Billy Joel, the results are hilarious. Like Jonathan Swift with a remote control, he gleefully shoots every fish in the pop-culture barrel. —Simon Leake

"A splendid collection...Eloquent, powerful, compassionate and droll. There is considerable variety in the subjects she addresses....Compelling."
THE CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
Thinking out loud is what Anna Quindlen does best. A syndicated columnist with her finger on the pulse of women's lives, and her heart in a place we all share, she writes about the passions, politics, and peculiarities of Americans everywhere. From gays in the military, to the race for First Lady, to the trials of modern motherhood and the right to choose, Anna Quindlen's views always fascinate.
More of her views can be found in LIVING OUT LOUD, and OBJECT LESSONS.

High style steps off the catwalk and into the doghouse in Pads for Pets. Featuring instructions for more than 30 chic and ingenious abodes and retreats for dogs, cats, mice, toads, birds, fish, turtles, and bunnies, this book is an invitation to update a primitive perch or antiquated aquarium. The Cat Scratch Fever wall hanging, for example, is a work of art that gets kitty s claws off the sofa. The Orphan Sock Bed creates a cozy dog spot out of all those odd socks. And Flying into the Chapel turns an old guitar into a birdhouse worthy of Elvis. While the projects range from simple crafts to weekend projects, each is guaranteed to charm pets and pet lovers alike. Adorable, amusing, and definitely do-able, the animal abodes in Pads for Pets were created by pet-loving California architects, designers, and artists. Proceeds from the book benefit P.A.W.S.

A collection of autobiographical stories about a somewhat dysfunctional 40-year-old woman and her family, this tie-in is being released simultaneously with the Paramount motion picture directed by Jodie Foster, and starring Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft and Robert Downey, Jr.

Coloring inside the lines, thinking inside the box, knitting the same-old scarf—those days are over. For knitters looking for something new to spark their imaginations, AlterKnits is the answer. Featuring 27 imaginative projects, 10 creativity exercises, and thought-provoking quotes from Albert Einstein, Martha Graham, and many more, AlterKnits inspires knitters to expect the unexpected, to enjoy the rewards of experimentation, and to see the possibilities of knitting with broader vision.

Some projects call for unusual materials-plastic tubing (for a bag handle) or sterling silver wire (for a necklace). Others blend different craft techniques-a pullover with sewn-on velvet cuffs, a baby blanket with painted-on polka dots. Still others apply knitting in unexpected places, such as laptop cases and bulletin boards. The creativity exercises-called AlterExercises-challenge knitters to try out new ideas and to ask provocative, sometimes amusing questions. Tucked into a pocket on the inside front cover is the 32-page AlterKnits notebook, the perfect place for readers to work on their AlterKnits exercises and do their own creative doodling .

With AlterKnits, our concept of what we can knit will be forever altered!

The trip of a lifetime, or a life sentence?

Disasters that can't wait to happen are guaranteed to make you unfasten your seatbelt for the belly laugh of the travel season. As you try to figure out why your wallet just disappeared, relax and be glad you weren't along for the ride with...

Marius Bosc as the entire waitstaff of a New York restaurant began attacking him after he tried to send back his lo mein.

Claudia Capos as she sat down to a splendid anteater served for a Tasmanian Thanksgiving.

Brooke Comer hitching a ride through Upper Egypt on top of a pickup bed full of unripe melons.

Matthew FIke when a coed in one of his English classes in Bulgaria announced "I need to be with you in your bed."

Nadine Payne when she was kicked off Romania's "Orient Distress" on a rail line in the middle of nowhere.

Cameron Burns on his honeymoon as his wife discovered a poisonous eight-inch long scorpion crawling down her blue cotton t-shirt. Zona Sage as she and a flight crew worked feverishly to track down a putrid smell that makes a jet's interior smell like a sewer.

Larry Parker as a stream of overnight freight trains rolled past the window of his Oregon bed and breakfast.

Carole Dickerson shipwrecked with her family on a dream vacation.

William Douglass as monkeys danced about his Kenya lodge room in his wife Jan's nightgown.

A welcome addition to the literature of the damned, this book rolls up the welcome mat as it makes you rethink those vacation plans. Yes, in this outragenously funny anthology of vacation horror stories you'll spend one too many nights in Tunisia and flee nightmarish holidays that stretch from Harare to Eternity.

It would seem a riddle worthy of the sphinx: how do you give children a sense of jazz music without playing a note? Chris Raschka answers loudly and clearly with the illustrated, syncopated Charlie Parker Played Be Bop. This sparse, rhythmic, repetitive text (inspired by a recording of Parker's "A Night in Tunisia") embraces and reflects the sound and feel of jazz when read aloud: "Charlie Parker played be bop. / Charlie Parker played saxophone. / The music sounded like be bop. / Never leave your cat alone." Whether in complete phrases or in nonsense refrains that taste like music in your mouth ("Alphabet alphabet, alphabet, alph, / Chickadee, chickadee, chickadee, chick, / Overshoes, overshoes, overshoes, o, / Reeti-footi, reeti-footi, reeti-footi, ree."), Raschka brings melody to the page, and rhythm to eager ears.

Raschka, whose Yo! Yes? won a Caldecott Honor, and whose Mysterious Thelonious—another ebullient, musical exploration of a jazz legend—was named a 1997 ALA Notable Book, proves once again that he is just as at home with a paintbrush as he is with a pen. His bold, quirky illustrations add movement and light to the words, buoying their already lyrical effect. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop is a colorful, whimsical romp through the world of jazz, sure to set young and old toes a-tapping. (Ages 4 to 8) —Brangien Davis

For over twenty-five years, Ellen Raskin's Newbery Medal-winning The Westing Game has been an enduring favorite. It has sold over one and a half million copies. This highly inventive mystery involves sixteen people who are invited to the reading of Samuel W. Westing's will. They could become millionaires-it all depends on how they play the tricky and dangerous Westing game, a game involving blizzards, burglaries, and bombings! Ellen Raskin has created a remarkable cast of characters in a puzzle-knotted, word-twisting plot filled with humor, intrigue, and suspense.