The Golden Compass (Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman

I found this book intriguing. Lyra lives in a world very much like our own, except that consciences take external, animal forms called daemons, and the roots for electricity and amber have been switched (though we don't find that out till The Subtle Knife). The book is frankly anti-authoritarian and anti-church, although one has to keep reading to get the full extent of Pullman's alternate theology. This book is carefully plotted and well written. It is much more subtle and sophisticated than the movie.