The first volume of Philip Pullman's The Book of Dust - which has been speculated about for years - arrived in the Blackstone Library in October.

The Book of Dust is a work in three parts, like His Dark Materials. 22 years after Northern Lights (July 1995) - the first of his world-famous His Dark Material trilogy, which sold more than 17.5 million copies in over 40 languages - The Book of Dust will return to the parallel world that has enthralled readers young and old.

Eleven year old Malcolm Polstead and his daemon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them, a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua...

More information at www.booktrust.org.uk.