Michael Sheen Narrating Philip Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth Is All We Ever Wanted

Return to the world of His Dark Materials with Philip Pullman’s #1 Bestseller The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth. The best way to do that? Follow the rich, warm, and mischievous sound of Michael Sheen’s voice.

Sheen, the acclaimed actor and favorite of The Mary Sue, also narrated the first book in the series, La Belle Sauvage, an audiobook that won many best-of-the-year notices in 2017. He even named his new daughter Lyra, after heroine Lyra Belacqua—quite the endorsement!

Fans will have a chance to encounter Pullman’s young Lyra face-to-face in HBO’s His Dark Materials series starring Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, James McAvoy, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The Lyra of The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth is an undergraduate embarking on a daring new adventure that fans will want to stream straight into their ears. Here’s what awaits:

The windows between the many worlds have been sealed and the momentous adventures of Lyra Silvertongue’s youth are long behind her—or so she thought. Lyra is now a twenty-year-old undergraduate at St. Sophia’s College and intrigue is swirling around her once more. Her daemon Pantalaimon is witness to a brutal murder, and the dying man entrusts them with secrets that carry echoes from their past.

The more Lyra is drawn into these mysteries, the less she is sure of. Even the events of her own past come into question when she learns of Malcolm Polstead’s role in bringing her to Jordan College.

Now Lyra and Malcolm will travel far beyond the confines of Oxford, across Europe and into the Levant, searching for a city haunted by daemons, and a desert said to hold the truth of Dust. The dangers they face will challenge everything they thought they knew about the world, and about themselves.

We hardly need convincing to listen to Michael Sheen read to us for hours—we’d listen to him read the phone book—but just in case you want a preview of what Sheen’s dulcet tones sound like when they’re applied to Pullman, here he is in the studio for The Secret Commonwealth.

Ready to hear more? Of course you are. Journey into the world of The Secret Commonwealth, and let Michael Sheen be your guide.

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