CDNSushi, don't feel badly - I'm apparently just as uninformed as you are on this trilogy. My only defence is that I usually only read books that are considered classics, tending to avoid modern literature.

I had seen the previews for the movie and thought it looked pretty interesting, but had no idea what it was really about (or that it was even based on a series of books) until I saw this thread. A little Googling has me convinced that it's worth reading.