#discworld city watch series my beloved

[shazzyv]

Been rereading the Discworld City Watch series coz those books are like crack laced with serotonin and I think Carrot is simultaneously one of the best and most terrifying characters in Discworld.

Best because yes he's the goodest boi and he's got a werewolf gf and he's unfailingly honest and decent to pretty much everyone and is so earnest and sweet people just can't disappointment him. Except...

One thing that sticks in my head is that last scene in Men at Arms

SPOILERS for most of the City Watch books:

When, right at the end Cruces is telling Carrot he's a long lost king and has the documentation to prove. Carrot walks over to it, takes a read and while Cruces is doing his villain monologue, stabs him through the chest. It's quick and clean and Carrot doesn't even bat an eye that he just took a man's life on purpose.

I say on purpose because my boi literally committed manslaughter in the previous book when he threw the Law and Ordinances at Wonse. He didn't seem to miffed then either, aside from the fact he just misunderstood an order from a superior.

Granted it's a funny joke and Wonse was a bastard but Carrot doesn't seem to react to it.

Like, throughout the books Vimes constantly struggles with the urge to just go ham and remove all the people causing the problems. He's constantly faced with the cynicism and cruelty and just the sheer stupidity of the world and always tries to do the moral thing, to do it by the book because as he says, "if you can do it for a good reason, you can do it for a bad reason." He's in the grey between black and white.

Carrot on the other hand doesn't really seem to mind. We never really see what Carrot is thinking (probably because he's so honest he just flat out says it) so it's hard to parcel how he feels about things.

My headcanon is he killed Wonse by accident, never thought about it again and then killed Cruces when he realized Cruces was a greater threat than he realized plus was about to kill Vimes. You could say the same about him skewering a werewolf later on in Fifth Element, but that was a survival situation I feel. Granted he never really kills again but I like to think if Carrot was face to face with Carcer or Stratford it would've been a very short conversation.

I think that's another reason why Vimes keeps a close eye on Carrot. Imagine doing your best to live life by a strict set of moral principles only to have your charismatic, well beloved second-in-command simply kill a man in front of you then tell you without blinking you had a wedding to go to.

Carrot even says "Personal doesn't mean important" which kind of tells me that no matter what his feelings on the subject, he's going to try to do the right thing.

And he killed Cruces for, I feel, a good reason.

He's a good man who'll kill you without a word and Vimes is a good man who'll kill you when there's no other acceptable option.

Vimes is the grey and Carrot is the white that gets dirty.

[sourb0i]

This one is a little late, but I finished reading Feet of Clay a few days ago so here are my fermented thoughts:

This one was a bit harder for me to get into bc it's the 3rd novel in the City Watch series, so all the main characters were established but I, a fool who is reading Discworld at random, was not as familiar with them

That said, it was super easy to pick up who's who, and I very quickly picked out my favorites (Cheri, Angua, Vimes)

Cheri my beloved <3

There 👏 is 👏 More 👏 Than 👏 One👏 Gender (Female Dwarf Rights 2k23!)

I wasn't a super huge fan of Nobs or Colon; Nobs bc that particular type of character just isn't my jam and Colon bc he didn't really seem to do anything? But again I may be missing some crucial personality details established in earlier books

I loved the murder mystery aspect of the plot, especially how Vimes handles it

However, I thought the whole 'conspiracy to make Nobs the King' bit felt a little over complicated. Maybe Dragon was a bigger villain in previous books but he felt a little out of nowhere, and I think he could've been built up more before the reveal (even tho it was kinda obvious he was a Bad Guy right at the beginning)

The whole plot with the Golems was fantastic, and honestly the book could've just been about that without the whole Secret Conspiracy bit

I also once again laud Pratchett for his masterful use of allegory; everyone attacking the golems even though they hadn't done anything was very poignant

I would Die for Dorfl

I very much hope the next book deals more with Angua's issues re: being a werewolf...perhaps this is another allegory of some kind

The prose itself (dialogue, descriptions of things) is, as always, excellent; witty, humorous, devastating when it needs to be

Hey, maybe leave in the comments which Discworld I should read next! Besides FoC, I've already read Monstrous Regiment, Wyrd Sisters, Small Gods, and Sourcery

[spifflocated]

I think, as a Vetinari/Drumknott shipper, The Last Hero has the potential to be the most beautifully heartbreaking book for them in the whole Discworld, despite the fact that Drumknott is never even named in it.

Some spoilers under the cut, though the biggest spoiler is probably that the Discworld series continues afterwards...

The Last Hero follows not long after the Truth (my best guess at the timeline puts it somewhat arbitrarily in the late summer of the same year, not long after Night Watch/ Thief of Time), where Rufus demonstrates the extent of his faith in Vetinari. By the end of the book, their trust in each other is apparent- Drumknott has protected Vetinari's reputation, and Vetinari brings Drumknott with him to The Times' offices, arguably simply as a companion. We see the beginnings of the two of them working together as a unit, in the way which is so much fun to read in Going Postal.

And then The Last Hero arrives, and Vetinari finds himself having to organise an effort to save the world, because essentially no one else can be trusted to get all of the different parties to work together well enough to get things done. And, because the planning and preparation will have to carry on during the sea journey to get there, he has to leave the city. It's a simple choice- if he doesn't go, and it doesn't work, there won't be a city. But if he does go, he's leaving the city at a time of crisis under a temporary governance. And even if the mission succeeds, there's no guarantee that Vetinari will make it back to Ankh Morpork. Worse things, as they say, happen at sea.

Drumknott isn't mentioned in TLH, so it's a fair assumption that he stays in the city. Which brings us to my personal headcanon: Vimes and the guild council are nominally in charge, but essentially Vetinari has left his beloved city in Drumknott's care. Which is a frankly remarkable show of trust, and is one of the reasons I like to envision them established in whatever type of relationship (platonic or not) you prefer to see them in by this point.

And then, think of it from Rufus's perspective. This is not the first time he has had to stay at home while Vetinari sets out on an uncertain mission. In Jingo, Rufus seemed to simply keep his head down- Lord Rust had taken over, after all. But now, he has to wait, and try to stop the city falling into chaos as word spreads of the potential end of the world, and hope against hope that Vetinari will come back to him. He has to stay, and do what he can, and Vetinari has to go. They have to face the end of the world apart, knowing that there is no other choice, because their loyalty is to each other but their duty is to the city. Sometimes I think of Rufus, alone at night, exhausted after a day of fighting fires but unable to sleep with worry for Vetinari, and with no news of if the mission is going to plan, or if it has proved hopeless and the world will end, and they'll never see each other again. And for a man who lives at the centre of Vetinari's web of information to suddenly have no news and no ability to change the outcome, it must have been so hard.

[himboskywalker]

Thank you so much for these many recommendations, i will definitely read some of them. I finally ordered lord of the rings, always wanted to do it but I finally did it.

I would love a separate rec list of less new books and overall classics. If you have the time of course. I always have a hard time finding new books for myself or to gift to other people.

Sure! And I'm ecstatic to hear you bought lotr! Another one to be welcomed into my fold! This list is decidedly less organized, but here's a list of more classic/ older works I always recommend or gift to people.

Anything written by our beloved Neil Gaiman. He's most well known, especially in this sphere, for "Good Omens" cowritten by Terry Pratchett, and rightfully so. If you've never read anything by either author, it is absolutely worth the hype, and even if you've watched the tv show, it is so incredibly funny and wonderful. "American Gods" is also phenomenal and very well known from its tv show now, but my personal favorite of Gaiman's is "Anansi Boys." No one does urban fantasy like him, and his works will always be the gold standard for me for this genre.

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. There's 41 books in the series so it's a mighty undertaking, I myself haven't gotten through all of them yet, I think I have about ten books left. They are so wonderfully funny and philosophical and witty. I don't recommend reading the books in the order Pratchett wrote them, rather there are collections in the series you'll want to read in order. The Death collection and City Watch books are my favorites but there are many more than that you may like better.

"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman. This is one of my favorite books of all time and while the movie certainly gets the vibe, it's a whole different animal. It's just so incredibly funny and fun and smartly written, and I've given it to many family and friends for Christmas and birthday presents.

"The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch. This is commonly regarded as a fantasy genre must and I often vehemently disagree with what's considered a "classic" but I have to side with the powers that be in the lit community on this one. It's just damn well written and character driven in the exact kind of way I love in stories. If you start reading it and think "oh look morally gray thief characters doing a heist" just remember, Lynch published it in '06 and pretty much wrote the template for everyone who has copied him since.

Anything by Ursula Le Guin although I read the "Earthsea" series first and would recommend starting there as well. She just really is that bitch, it doesn't get better written or more observant of life than her. Outside of Tolkien I don't know if there's anyone I admire more as an author than Le Guin. Her prose are not only stunningly gorgeous, but line after line after line hits like a sucker punch to the side of the head for how she makes you see life and yourself in new ways. “Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky.”

The Redwall series by Brian Jacques! I love them so dearly, they're fun and beautifully written and full of adventuring that only forest animals with swords are capable of. I do recommend reading them in order, or at least the original "Redwall" before you dive into the rest of the series, but "Taggerung" is my favorite.

This is a more divisive rec nowadays but Kurt Vonnegut. If you read "Slaughterhouse Five" in school and hated it I don't blame you, it's not my favorite of his and not what I urge people to look to if they want to fall in love with him like I did when I was a teenager. My favorite Vonnegut is "Sirens of Titan" and "Breakfast of Champions." Do look at content warnings for "Sirens of Titan" and I've seen a lot of vitriolic reviews of the book in recent years by younger readers, but I absolutely think it's worth the read and the shining glorious example of what I mean when I say protagonists aren't meant to be liked or morally right.

And speaking of squicky divisive recs! May I tell you about our lord and savior of "oh god I don't know if I can get through this" Margaret Atwood? Most people know her for "Handmaid's Tale" but I first read "Oryx and Crake." Seriously, read the content warnings, but Atwood is known for writing the best of speculative sci-fi for a reason.

Anything by Octavia Butler. My intro to her was through "Bloodchild" which I highly recommend, and I think is the perfect introduction to her brand of unnerving brilliance. She is most well known for "Kindred" and rightfully so.

"Perfume" The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. It's weird, by god it's weird, and it's one of my absolute favorite "classic lit" novels. In 18th century France a weird little freak of a guy with a super sense of smell winds up murdering a bunch of people to make perfume. It's fantastic and the quintessential, I will not morally justify this, but boy am I enjoying reading about this little creep.

"Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh. I also love "Filth" and "Porno" by him. I think Welsh is brilliant at characterization, especially when most of his characters are morally bankrupt and terrible. But what he does best is make you feel for these characters who have often put themselves in these terrible positions. They're just people, and life is shitty, and I don't think anyone writes that better than Welsh.

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien. O'Brien made a career of writing fictionalized recounts of his time in Vietnam. I love everything he's written, he is one of my favorite modern lit authors, but "The Things They Carried" is his best known work and what I first read of his. It's brilliant and beautiful and sad, and it was the first time I ever had to put a book down and read in chunks because it affected me so emotionally.

Cormac McCarthy, any and everything he has ever written. He's best known for "The Road" of course, and it's certainly worth the read but "Blood Meridian" is my absolute favorite of his. His stuff is brutal and wry and full of the dry irony that only the bleakness of reality offers, and by god is it well written.

And finally I'll leave you with a single nonfiction recommendation. I try to keep those minimal when I know that's not usually what people are looking for when they ask for reading recs. But since I'm giving a list of books I have often gifted, I can't NOT include this one. "Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl. I read this at 18 and it had a profound impact on how I think and view life. Any time someone I love has gone through a difficult time I've bought them their own copy.“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

[old-stoneface]

i finished the feet of clay audiobook so i started idly listening to the last novel in the shades of magic series (arcade is rereading the city watch novels n i dont wanna get too far ahead of him, hes abt halfway thru foc) and my discworld bias is really coming thru....shades of magic is about worlds where everyone has magic and some people have more than others and theres beloved monarchs and all in all, its mainly a series about the romanticization of royalty and the way common people will worship kings and princes, and genuinely the only thing i can think as i listen to this final book is when vimes said that when humanity was made, someone added the defect of making them bend at the knees to kneel........ i just cant take books about the divine right of kings seriously anymore...no matter how interesting or romantic it is. this is why i gotta finish reading the translation of the king arthur stories that i have. i like messy stories about historical rulers fucking up royally (pun intended)

[smolsleepyfox]

I was tagged by @camdennightingale thank you!!

Last song you listened to: The Black by Dynasty! Good band, great vocalist. The one before that was Saint Beyond the River by Fellowship, because that is still the folk banger I need to sing while driving.

Last thing you read: I just finished Höken sjunger om död by Johan Tralau, a Swedish crime novel set in the city of Uppsala! I've also been reading on and off in Nordiska väsen, an illustrated Encyclopedia of nordic, specifically Swedish folklore creatures by Johan Egerkrans. And right now I'm listening to the Color of Magic by our beloved Sir Terry, because I found the audiobook on youtube and meant to get into discworld anyway.

Last thing you watched: not much of a movie or series person, I tend to watch either disaster documentaries, or one specific Canadian dog groomer on youtube :D and I once again researched History of the entire world I guess by bill wurtz because it's a damn masterpiece

Thing you're obsessed with currently: I started Pokémon Mystery Dungeon DX, and lo and behold it's a remake of the game that shaped my childhood (Rescue Team Blue) so I've been playing that obsessively for a few days, oops. I should be doing things but. Y'know.

No pressure tags: @theineated @luka-button @tellmeoflegends @ebonydraygon @electricpentacle @joel-farabee

[thelionheartedo3]

thanks for the tag @agentnatesewell!!

Last Song: Traveling Song by Ryn Weaver, which came on when I was driving home and it's soo good but always makes me so emotional LOL

Currently Watching: I haven’t been keeping up on shows/movies, but we did rewatch Jurassic Park the other day! 

Currently Reading: At work, I’ve been relistening to the audiobooks of the City Watch series from Discworld, but I’ve been chipping my way through The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid when I’ve got a bit of time before bed. 

Current Obsession: My hyperfixation for Wayhaven came back with a vengeance in February and I’ve been waist deep in it since. N Sewell my beloveds <3

I saw this notification way late, and I’m not sure who’s all been tagged, so whoever’s reading this and wants to do this consider yourself tagged!!

[abysscronica]

Hi! I saw your post on what books/series you've read and if you like funny fantasy I'm here to make the obligatory discworld recomedation. Is there a flow chart on recommended places to sart the 40 book series? Yes but it's 100% worth it.

It's all set on the disc, a flat world on the back of 4 elephants, who stand on the back of a giant turtle flying though space.

You're very strong at writing characters, and that's something sir Terry is also very good at writing, and I think you would appreciate that. All the characters are so fleshed out, even silly side characters that only show up in one line.

Some of the most beloved characters is the literal anthropomorphic personification of DEATH (loved for hos kindness and his intrest in what its like to be human), the librarian (a human in a magical library that go turned into a orangutan and wont let anyone change him back), Susan sto helit (deaths adopted granddaughter who is basically goth Mary poppins), Sam vines captian of the night watch who's job was mostly obsolete by the city ruler making all crime legal and unionized, rincewind a cowardly wizard who can't do magic and is repeatedly forced to save the world, (and his living trunk The Luggage described as part suitcase part homicidal maniac, that moves around with the hundreds of tiny human feet under it) (it's eaten 15 people and will do your laundry).

This is a bit rambling, but if you're looking for some books that will make you laugh and cry in the best way; I can't recommend these books enough.

What an enthusiastic review and suggestion! And, as we say in Italian, you're knocking down an open door. The first book of Pratchett's Discworld series has been sitting in my to-read list for months now. I may get into it right after I finish this torturous House of Earth and Blood (I lost a dare so now I cannot drop it), god knows I need a good fantasy to cleanse my eyes now.

[luwupercal]

you can tell the tier of a night for me by how far back into my fanfiction reading past i'm reaching into. anyhow i forgot how good Mister Vimes'd Go Spare is

[trainthief]

Got any book recs?

Hmmm…. I’ve been tearing through Terry Pratchett’s Discworld lately, and I’d highly recommend it. It’s a really fun fantasy series that jumps around between various characters. I started with the story arc that follows the city watch, so if you’d like to follow in my footsteps read the book “Guards! Guards!” first. If not, “Mort” or “Going Postal” are two other great books to start with. I just loaned my mom my copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”, which I love just for the narrative format alone. Or if you’re in the mood for mystery, my friend and I read Stuart Turton’s “The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle” last October and thought it was great.

If you want some nonfiction, my recommendations are predictably nature-focused, but I’m reading Catherine Raven’s “Fox & I”, and I’ve liked it so far. I also think everyone should read Aldo Leopald’s “Sand County Almanac” at least once. Outside of nature-based books I’d also highly recommend the book “My Beloved Man”, which is a collection of letters between composer Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears. They’re really sweet, and very interesting to read.

If you’d like poetry, I’d recommend some CP Cavafy or Wisława Szymborska. They both have a tone and pacing I really enjoy, although you’ll need translations for either. Or Frost is always amazing, obviously. Hope that helps!

[casxmorgan]

Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

It

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Next

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[the-grey-hunt]

hello beloved (presumably) mutual (tumblr mobile is Broken™ so who knows). how do you recommend getting into discworld? I see your posts about it and want to read it, but don’t know where to start. I work in a library so I believe I have near-infinite ability to get my hands on any of them. any recommendations on where to start or just a good one-off for something to read when I finish good omens (if you feel like it of course lol) would be infinitely appreciated! <3

first of all, discworld is almost 40 books long and is an extremely beloved series, but also very complicated. this means everyone you ask will have a different answer to this question. please refer to the capitalized subheadings of this reply

LONG ANSWER

basically, discworld is a series made up of several smaller series which all take place in different locations in the same fantasy setting, the titular Discworld. many people recommend starting with Guards! Guards!, which is the sub-series about the city watch (fantasy police) in a city called Ankh-Morpork (this is the most popular one

there's also the Death sub-series (death does shenanigans, such as attempting to retire, taking an apprentice, and occasionally replacing Fantasy Santa Claus™. death shows up in cameos in most of the other books tho

then there's the Witches books (three old witches do cool stuff, which later transitions into the more YA/child-oriented Tiffany Aching subseries, also very good. Tiffany is nine)

there's also the books about Wizards (technically the beginning of the series), the books about the con man (Con Boy Is Forced Into Civil Service, Develops Conscience, it's cooler than i'm making it sound) and several standalones such as Small Gods, Pyramids, or Monstrous Regiment which are all wildly good.

SKIP HERE FOR SHORT ANSWER

there is no short answer, but theoretically, people can (and have) just picked a discworld book at random and started reading. i have read many of them out of order. all it requires is a good suspension of disbelief and a willingness to roll with it (since no matter where you start, (unless you pick Color of Magic, which everyone says you shouldn't) you'll be encountering references to past books you haven't read).

SKIP HERE FOR SHORTER ANSWER

SKIP HERE FOR SHORTEST ANSWER

if you want something to continue with after good omens, read REAPER MAN.

[freefromlightandlaw]

Hello, hello! I see you've been blogging FL with Discworld quotes, and I've been very interested in reading the latter. I have also heard, however, that you shouldn't read them starting with 1. What is your recommended starting book for the series?

Honestly, I recommend the City Watch books. The first I read was Snuff, and I just fell in love with Discworld when I read it, but Guards, Guards is chronologically first in the Watch series. Night Watch is Most Beloved In My Heart, but probably not the best starting point.

Monstrous Regiment is pretty much a stand alone, and I HIGHLY recommend it.

Hope this helps!

[femvimes]

So you’ve watched and read Good Omens, now what?

Hi there! Your friendly local Terry Pratchett fan here. If you’re anything like me, you’ve been looking for something Good Omens-ish to read ever since you finished the show. I’ll start with the caveat that I haven’t read much of Neil Gaiman, so others can chime in on appropriately-similar things that he’s written. 

First step would be, of course, to read the book itself. Okay, back already? Done that?

Next, well, it depends on what aspects of the show you want to focus on. Obviously we all love Crowley and Aziraphale, and I’ll get to them. They’re actually kind of unique in the pantheon of characters that Terry wrote, so I’ll move on to:

The Them

Terry tried out the kid dynamic only a few years after Gomens with the Johnny Maxwell trilogy. They are Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead, and Johnny and the Bomb. Like Adam Young, Johnny is a “Just William”-like character and has a gang of friends whom weird things happen to.

Neil wrote a book that I would consider similar to Johnny and the Dead which you may have heard of: The Graveyard Book. It’s been some years since I read it, but I think it was my first Gaiman and I enjoyed it. It’s about a baby who is abandoned in a graveyard and gets raised by ghosts.

The Four Horsemen

This one is super easy, because Gomens Death has kind of been transplanted from Discworld. Like Gomens!Death, DW!Death TALKS LIKE THIS, has a similar aesthetic, and shows up whenever important characters die. DW!Death has a surprisingly deep sense of justice and has saved the world on more than one occasion. Two memorable occasions are in Reaper Man and Thief of Time. ToT includes another take on the Four Horsemen’s ride and features Death’s human(ish) granddaughter Susan. Reaper Man is a fan-favorite and involves Death retiring and becoming human.

Neil created his own psychopomp, Death from the Sandman comics. I know next-to-nothing about this character except for the fact that she appears as a kind young woman, so if that sounds intriguing, check her out.

Heaven and Hell

This element is unique to the show, but I was reminded of the office politics of the demons in Eric by Terry. Also, Terry’s first ever short story, written when he was twelve, was about a man making a rather unique deal with the devil. It’s called “The Hades Business” and you can find it in the short story collection A Blink of the Screen. Small Gods and The Last Hero, both from the Discworld series, deal with the Discworld gods. Small Gods is more Big Idea like Gomens, and widely considered to be one of his best.

From Neil, of course, there’s American Gods, which is my personal favorite of his. Also deals with belief. It’s less lighthearted than Gomens and has some excellent American Gothic. I think Neil’s outsider perspective on America allowed him to write one of the most American novels ever.

Anathema/Newt/Shadwell/Tracy

Sorry, I’m just going to lump these all in together. Newt and Anathema follow a very recognizable early Terry relationship profile, of a kind of incompetent man and a practical women. Find this again in Wyrd Sisters and Moving Pictures. For Shadwell and Mme. Tracy, I look to that holy bible of Discworld books, Guards! Guards!, which features two unlikely characters no longer in the prime of their life getting together at the end. (And making one of my favorite couples in literature.)

Agnes Nutter comes up again (kind of) in the Discworld books as the witch Agnes Nitt. The characters aren’t similar except for the fact that they’re both witches. Agnes is proudly fat, practical, and has an otherworldly singing talent. Her best books are Maskerade and Carpe Jugulum.

Aziraphale and Crowley

Gays throughout history GAYS THROUGHOUT HISTORY

I practice self care by reading queer romance novels, and you should too. As I said before, Terry and Neil (as far as I know) never wrote another dynamic that was quite like Aziraphale and Crowley. So, as a gift to you, I’m just going to recommend my favorite gay novels, in roughly historical order:

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner (This is NOT CANON but I have hopes for the sequel.) (Alternative history Ancient Greece.) This is the fifth in the incredible Queen’s Thief series, but it’s a great standalone. A guard from an enemy country frees a slave, the slave is conflicted about it, and they go on a big ol’ gay road trip.

The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian. (Regency era.) God, this BOOK - Julian Medlock writes a book and models the villain after his hate-crush Lord Courtenay. When Courtenay’s reputation is so smeared he can’t visit his beloved nephew, Julian’s sister (and Courteny’s friend) Eleanor convinces them to team up to bring Courtenay back into society’s good graces. It’s fluffy and incredible, y’all.

An Unnatural Vice by KJ Charles. (Victorian era.) Nathaniel Roy feels obligated to expose charlatan medium Justin Lazarus, even though they have a definite attraction to each other. When they’re both caught up in a sordid (and dangerous) scandal, Nathaniel spirits them away to his family’s country house where they fall in love. This is the second in the Sins of the City trilogy, and the whole series is interconnected, but this one’s my favorite.

And there you have it! Again, anyone else feel free to chime in on more read-alikes by Neil Gaiman. It’s really interesting to see them both use the themes that they introduced in Gomens in their other work. Gomens is similar to a lot of late-eighties/early-nineties Pratchett, and I would imagine the same applies to Neil.

[mistninja]

This post reached 2k notes (holy shit) so if anyone wants to get into discworld heres a little help to do it:

First, discworld is a comic fantasy series written by Sir Terry Pratchett, consisting of 41 books. Now, you dont need to be overwhelmed by that number, since the books are written as more or less standalone stories set all in the same world, with some reoccurring characters and themes, but theres no need to read them in any specific order.

You could start with The Color of Magic, the first book, but i havent personally read it and i dont think its necessary. Some say its a bit weak since Pratchett was still figuring out what he wanted to do with the series. Dont quote me on that tho.

Generally, Discworld can be subdivided in a few series, these have some of a internal chronology but again theres no need to read them in order or all of them. A few good places to start (in my limited opinion, since i haven't read all the series):

Guards, Guards! - the first in the "City Watch" series, it follows Samuel Vimes, an old and pessimistic member of the Night Watch of Ankh-Morpork, the biggest, loudest alive-est city in the Disc. A city where thieves are legal, so long as they are certified by the guild of thieves, as well as assassins and the such. Sam and his men have pretty much given up on trying to be heroes, but circumstances force them to take a stand. This book also parodies the trope of the lost prince, and is a good introduction to the comedic but earnest tone of the series. (This is my personal favorite so far, and the first i read!)

Mort - first entry in the Death series. It follows the titular character, Mort, as he gets taken in by Death as His apprentice. Death appears in pretty much all the books and is one of the most beloved characters from the discworld.

Small Gods - not part of any specific series, this one follows a god who has just found out that even though he has one of the biggest churches in the world, he only has one true believer. This is a lovely story about faith, and the main character, Brutha, the one true believer of Ohm, is one of my favorites.

Monstruous Regiment - also set apart from other books, and chronologically a quite late entry in the Discworld, this one revolves around a girl, Polly, who dresses up as a man in order to find her brother who has been sent into the army. This one is simply amazing and cant really get into why, you have to experience it yourself.

Happy reading :)

Genuinely despise when authors do the "haha we are so self aware" thing. Stop mocking whatever genre you are working with or stop working on that genre. Be more like Pratchett. Discworld characters are aware they are in a fantasy setting and it slaps because Pratchett loves fantasy and you get stuff like fate being a real thing and improbable things happening because its narratively satisfying and the characters bet on it. Its amazing

[lizziestudieshistory]

Book Challenge: your favourite series

Day 3 was a difficult one for me! As an avid fantasy reader there are so many series I have read and adored over the years, so choosing one was almost impossible. However, I've managed it! But if you ask me tomorrow or in a week's time this answer might change...

Anyway Day 3 is going to Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett!

In the end I chose Discworld for two reasons:

It was the series I've read the most books from and enjoyed the vast majority of them (18 so far)

This is the series that brings the most fun to my favourite genre

Fantasy is quite often very serious with a few comedic moments here and there, Discworld on the other hand is a brilliant comic/satirical fantasy series that offers a refreshing perspective on a much beloved genre. This is the world that flies through space on the backs of four elephants who in turn ride on the back of a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin, after all!

Discworld is a series that has something for whatever mood I'm in, even if I want the story of an ex-con man who's unfortunate name means damn fake-moustache, and is forced to go straight and reopen a post office by a tyrant patrician... (Got to love Going Postal 😉) It's crazy how much scope is in this one, rather long, series of books!

What I love the most are the sub-series and choice of genre involved in Discworld. There's the satirical take on the classic sword and sorcery fantasy with Rincewind and the Wizards, or the crime mysteries of the City Watch, and, still there are stand-alones that I have adored as much as the main series! Yet most of these stories hold some sort of real world commentary to get your teeth into (I quite like the commentary on nationalism in Jingo as an example).

Throughout all this Pratchett offers some amazing stories, brilliant characters, and a fantasy world unlike any I've ever read before!

(Image: Guards! Guards!, The Colour of Magic, and Going Postal by Pratchett (featuring The Luggage!))

A few honourable mentions for favourite series:

The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson (incomplete)

Middle Earth (everything, not just Lord of the Rings) by Tolkien (the closest, but sometimes I'm not in the mood for Tolkien's prose, it's very dry 😱)

The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan (very fun, but ultimately bested by the complexities of the other series)