Facepalm

I was so worried he wouldn't! He is coming up in the years, and this was apparently the first book he didn't manage to write fully by hand because of pain, so he finished it on a computer. The audiobook read by Michael Sheen has a kind of, interview/dialogue between Sheen and Pullman at the end, where they discuss... lots of things. Sheen was so taken with the story that he named his daughter Lyra as well.

I found that particular part has been uploaded to YouTube.