The Big Sleep The Big Sleep The Big Sleep (1939) is a hardboiled crime novel by Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective Philip Marlowe. It has been adapted for film twice, in 1946 and again in 1978. The story is set in Los Angeles. The story is noted for its complexity, with characters double-crossing one another and secrets being exposed throughout the narrative. The title is a euphemism for death; it refers to a rumination about "sleeping the big sleep" in the final pages of the book. In 1999, the book was voted 96th of "Le Monde"s "100 Books of the
The Book of Dust quipped that it alternatively be titled "His Darker Materials". Pullman conceived "The Book of Dust" before the publication of "Lyra's Oxford" in 2003. On his website in April 2005, he wrote that the book was "under way". In 2007, he described it as "a big, big book". In a 2009 interview with Oxford University newspaper "Cherwell", Pullman stated that "The Book of Dust" was "growing" but that he was "encountering complexities that seem to be making it longer than I thought it would be." In 2011, Pullman said that he was considering writing "The Book of Dust" in two volumes,