Author:Elizabeth Gaskell,Gemma Whelan

Brought to you by Penguin.
This Penguin Classic is performed by Gemma Whelan, best known for her roles in Game of Thrones, Gentleman Jack and Upstart Crow. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Patricia Ingham.
When her father leaves the Church, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the North of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice.
In North and South Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern and in Margaret Hale created one of the mostoriginal heroines of Victorian literature.
Beautiful...the extraordinary Yoko Ogawa casts her spell ...This is a tale which will leave the reader gasping
—— Irish TimesAlive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, this novel has the pared-down elegance of an equation
—— Oprah magazineStrangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout... fairy-tale surrealism and quiet spiritual wisdom
—— Washington PostThis is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water...Dive into Yoko Ogawa's world and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen
—— New York TimesWhere Yoko Ogawa's brilliance lies is in taking such an apparently stiff framework and bending it into a work of warmth and beauty; or showing us that mathematics is not a cold, hard, science, but an elegant, complex, shimmering art. This feat of literary spoon-bending is accomplished with such calm elegance that it quite takes the breath away
—— The Times Book ClubThe novel gallops forward, full of danger, delight and surprise. Nearly miraculous, it seems, is Pullman's ability to sketch character, place and motive in just a few lines
—— New StatesmanA long, taxing, complex journey, laced with beauty, terror and philosophy
—— MetroAs ever, Pullman's story is complex and vast but home to some of the finest storytelling in the 21st century. Revel in whole new worlds and enjoy one of literature's most wonderful heroines before she comes to HBO and the BBC
—— StylistPullman is confronting readers with the horrors of our own world reflected back at us. In The Secret Commonwealth he creates a fearful symmetry
—— The HeraldPullman has created a fantasy world, made yet more satisfying in this new volume. This is a book for getting older with
—— GuardianREVIEWS FOR LA BELLE SAUVAGE: THE BOOK OF DUST VOLUME ONE:
Fans of His Dark Materials will find themselves joyfully immersed in a familiar world . . . meanwhile, awaiting first-time readers is all the pleasure of commencing their own journey into this most captivating of universes at the very beginning of Lyra's story
No one else writes like Pullman . . . entirely worth the 17-year wait
—— Imogen Russell Williams, MetroA rich, imaginative, vividly characterised rite-of-passage tale
—— Nicolette Jones, The Sunday TimesHigh-octane adventure accompanies ingenious plotting
—— The Times






