Within a year, I think I had almost all the Pratchetts that had then been published, in hard cover. They had a dedicated bookshelf... and then two shelves...and currently two and a good bit of a third. I have his YA books, his picture book, maps of Discworld and Lancre and Ankh-Morpork and Death's Domain. I have a Discworld quizbook...
If you haven't read Pratchett, I urge you to give him a try. Start with Guards, Guards. Or Wyrd Sisters. Or, one of my favorites, Feet of Clay. Or his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.
His books are funny...sometimes laugh-until- tears-run-down-your-cheeks funny. Sometimes suddenly-be-hit-by-something-three-pages-earlier-so-that's-what
-he-means funny. Sometimes grimly-funny. Pratchett has created this incredibly imagined world that's a lot like our world, with a lot of the same problems and all the same sorts of people, where sometimes problems can be solved with magic but more often by common sense, grit and determination. The books have gotten deeper as they go along. The latest books about the Watchmen are not so much funny as deeply touching and thoughtful...well, okay, they're funny, too.
-he-means funny. Sometimes grimly-funny. Pratchett has created this incredibly imagined world that's a lot like our world, with a lot of the same problems and all the same sorts of people, where sometimes problems can be solved with magic but more often by common sense, grit and determination. The books have gotten deeper as they go along. The latest books about the Watchmen are not so much funny as deeply touching and thoughtful...well, okay, they're funny, too.
One of my best experiences recently was to sit in a tent in Washington DC last summer and listen to Pratchett speak. I didn't get my books signed...it was hot and there were hundreds of people in line...but I can say I was in the same room as he was. I wrote about it in this very blog.
A few months ago, Terry Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with an early-onset and aggressive form of Alzheimer's. This just devastates me. That someone for whom words and language were such an expressive instrument is a victim of an illness that is going to steal that from him in tiny bits. Well, that's just wrong.
Pratchett has donated half a million pounds towards Alzheimer's research and the people at the Match It for Pratchett website are trying to match it. I'm not saying you have to go and donate. I'm just trying to make it easier for you if you'd like to do something.
In lighter news....pretty! Stephanie is cuter in the hat than I.
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* The bookstore, alas, is gone now. A local couple opened the first one to great acclaim...articles in the paper, etc. The bookstore was very successful. And then, a few years later, they rapidly opened four or five other stores. (I worried that they were over-extending themselves.) The original store (the one near us) and one of the others were doing well. The others, not so well. And then the couple absconded with something like $12 million and the stores were closed. Either the husband or wife of this couple was the child of a man who had done essentially the same thing with a string of drug stores in Baltimore years ago. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The whole thing still makes me really angry.
In lighter news....pretty! Stephanie is cuter in the hat than I.
_______________
* The bookstore, alas, is gone now. A local couple opened the first one to great acclaim...articles in the paper, etc. The bookstore was very successful. And then, a few years later, they rapidly opened four or five other stores. (I worried that they were over-extending themselves.) The original store (the one near us) and one of the others were doing well. The others, not so well. And then the couple absconded with something like $12 million and the stores were closed. Either the husband or wife of this couple was the child of a man who had done essentially the same thing with a string of drug stores in Baltimore years ago. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The whole thing still makes me really angry.
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