The Republic of Heaven

So how did you meet HDM?
Did you see it in a library or a bookstore and liked the cover or
did someone tell you about it or...

The year 2000 (when I was 11) I met it because my father was juging the book for a newspaper, and got one of the first book on Iceland, before it was publishd, (so I was probably the with the first ones on Iceland to read it). I had nothing to read so I decided to check it out and fell instantly in love with it.

This is my book

My family, who are ridiculously over-religious and get all these newspapers like the 'Evangelical Times' (:P), read an article about these 'outrageous' books. I had no choice!

Some years ago, my mother bought me the Golden Compass and the Subtle Knife. It was before the Amber Spyglass had been released, at least here in Germany. My mother often buys books and expects me to read them, so I ignored them for quite a while, but when I finally started reading, I loved them and read them within a week or so.

I sure enough read the two books in the wrong order, but I was quite used to do such things

Over the next months/years, I regularly went to the local bookstore asking wether the new book was out

doesn´t a topic like this exist already?

I dont know...
Could be...
I didnt find any...

There is another topic similar...can't remember what it's called. I "met" HDM in a used bookstore w/ a really crappy copy.

Yeah, there's a topic called "How did you first hear about HDM?" a little farther down in the General Dark Materials Discussion, so I'd imagine if you still wanted to know most people's stories (including mine) you could check there.

oh.. sorry..

Quite alright. We will just go off in some random subject for another 5 pages on something completely off topic. ^_^ You know how we love to do that.

Um....

Cake! Everybody loves cake!

I like ice cream cake. Chocolate too. How 'bout you?

How 'bout we get back on topic?

I won my first copy of TGC in a library reading program. One of my friends had been reading it and loved it, and so the summer between 8th and 9th grade, I won it and read it. I bought TSK soon afterward and spent the first several lunch periods of high school reading that. Needless to say, I spent the next few months waiting impatiently for TAS.

I think I first heard of HDM sometime in 2001, but didn't read them until the beginning of 2002, when I was at a children's lit course at uni. I was only required to read Guldkompassen (NL in Swedish), but I fell completely in love with it and when I had finished I went and bought the whole trilogy in English.

I first found The Golden Compass in my school library in 6th grade I'm pretty sure (1998/1999-ish?) because I was extrememly bored and at a lack of reading material. So I was wandering the shelves until lo and behold The Golden Compass' jacket caught my eye. I devoured it, although wary with the first few pages, quickly found the Subtle Knife and anxiously waited for The Amber Spyglass to be released.

I hadn't heard anything about the books from the media or friends prior to my reading them so my meeting with His Dark Materials was completely coincidental. Well kinda, It DID have a pretty shiny cover...

i was rummaging through my pitiful middle school library misplacing books out of order, in protest to the schools dress code, when i came across TGC. i read the first book in about 10 hours and immediatly read the next two. and i do remember it having a shiney cover when i first saw it.

my grandma gave me TSK for christmas and gave my sister TGC, i loved them when i finally started reading them but then decided it was an evil trick cuz the third one wasn't out. but i will say my grandma has always been a major influence on my love of reading.

Some people I was friends with on a music course were reading it, and said it was good!

my little sister reads out loud a lot, which really annoys me. however, when i heard her say, lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side i fell in love with the story, and i bought the whole trilogy in a buy three for the price of two sale at wh smiths. that's all it took.

-- darren