Howl’s Moving Castle

Now an animated movie from Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, the oscar-winning director of Spirited Away

The beloved modern classic, released as an unabridged audiobook for the first time in 2019.

In the land of Ingary, where seven league boots and invisibility cloaks exist, young Sophie Hatter catches the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste and is put under a spell . . .

Deciding she has nothing more to lose, Sophie makes her way to the moving castle that hovers on the hills above her town, Market Chipping. But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl, whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the souls of young girls…

There Sophie meets Michael, Howl’s apprentice, and Calcifer the fire demon, with whom she agrees a pact. Her entanglements with Calcifer, Howl and Michael and her quest to break her curse come alive with Diana Wynne Jones’s unique combination of magic, humour and imagination.

Reviews

“Imaginative and terribly funny ”
Michael Morpurgo
THE TELEGRAPH – 100 Best Books a Child Should Read

“Wit and humor glint from the pages"
THE HORN BOOK

Praise for Diana Wynne Jones

“…Her hallmarks include laugh-aloud humour, plenty of magic and imaginative array of alternate worlds. Yet, at the same time, a great seriousness is present in all of her novels, a sense of urgency that links Jones’s most outrageous plots to her readers’ hopes and fears…”
Publishers Weekly

“Diana Wynne Jones ought to be crowned with coloured garlands because she is the best writer of magical fantasy for children in this country ” Evening Standard

“Diana Wynne Jones could teach Stephen King and JK Rowling a thing or two … [she] has a skill for inserting just the right amount of detail in her written words, leaving you satiated but not stuffed.” SFX

About the author

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) spent her childhood in Essex and began writing fantasy novels for children in the 1970s. With her unique combination of magic, humour and imagination, she enthralled generations of children and adults with her work. She won the Guardian Award in 1977 with Charmed Life, was runner-up for the Children's Book Award in 1981 and was twice runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.