I don’t remember if it was during my first CBR or a pre-CBR year that I read the first Discworld book, The Color of Magic. It wasn’t my jam. I just didn’t get into it. My sister, an avid reader of Pratchett, suggested that I would *really* like the Tiffany Aching books, and said, “Start with The Wee Free Men.” So I did, in honor of Sir Pratchett’s recent passing, and I am delighted with this new encounter. Tiffany Aching is a nine-year-old girl who […]
“If cats looked like frogs we’d realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are.”
I had planned to read one Discworld novel each month in 2015 as part of my cannonball read before hearing about Sir Terry’s passing last month. While I am still a newbie to his work, Lords and Ladies being only my fourth book of his, I was still struck by how quickly a truly gifted writer can bury themselves into your conscience and feel like your own. I may not have known you work long Sir Terry, but it knows me well. On to Lords […]
All the Single Ladies
In a world soaked in magic, in a city choked with people, in a University cluttered with men, it’s going to take a woman to set things right. Read about it here.
The Man behind the Discworld
I just learned Terry Pratchett died today. I’m trying to process that grief and it feels like I’ve lost an old friend. The world is a worse place without him there is no doubt. I wrote this review a couple of weeks ago but hadn’t posted it yet. Now is as good as time as any. Thank you, sir. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Not an autobiography, but still pretty close to it, A Slip of the Keyboard is a collection […]
Last train to dementia.
My father’s mother and my husband’s maternal grandmother both passed away last year. They suffered from dementia and Alzheimer’s, respectively. It was just as painful for me to watch my grandmother waste away into a shadow of her former self as it was to have the same conversations with my husband’s grandmother knowing she would never know me for more than minutes at a time. I got that same sadness to a lesser degree while reading Sir Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld book.
“You can’t go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it’s just a cage.”
Being that Witches Abroad is a Discworld novel written by Sir Terry Pratchett there are literary tropes to be abused and social mores to be jumped up and down on. For our enjoyment this time Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick are off to stop a bad fairy godmother from unleashing a terrible torrent of stories all over the poor city of Genua. That sentence of plot description, admittedly, makes very little sense, but I promise you Pratchett has a certain way of weaving […]