So I was walking to dinner with Jonnyboy tonight whilst talking about books...nothing unusual there.

We agreed that there were some books that you didn't really want to start reading because the prospect of having to get through all the subsequent books in the series was too much to bear. His example was Robert Jordan (fair enough), mine was Pratchett.

JP said that the advantage of Pratchett is that each book stands on its own. So given that I refuse to get sucked in to read them all I suggested I start a thread to find out the best books he's written and just read those.

John warned of a shit storm....which made me want to do this all the more.

Fellow Badgers, can we please have your top 10 books from the discworld series!

Bibliography reproduced herewith for your convenience:

The Colour of Magic (1983) (Rincewind)
The Light Fantastic (1986) (Rincewind)
Equal Rites (1987) (Witches)
Mort (1987) (Death)
Sourcery (1988) (Rincewind)
Wyrd Sisters (1988) (Witches)
Pyramids (1989) (One-off)
Guards! Guards! (1989) (City Watch)
Faust Eric (1990) (Rincewind)
Moving Pictures (1990) (One-off)
Reaper Man (1991) (Death)
Witches Abroad (1991) (Witches)
Small Gods (1992) (One-off)
Lords and Ladies (1992) (Witches)
Troll Bridge (1992) (Short story)
The Colour of Magic: The Graphic Novel (Graphic Novel)
Men at Arms (1993) (City Watch)
Theatre of Cruelty (1993) (Short story)
The Light Fantastic: The Graphic Novel (1993) (Graphic Novel)
The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (1993) (Map)
Soul Music (1994) (Death)
Interesting Times (1994) (Rincewind)
Mort: A Discworld Big Comic (1994) (Graphic Novel)
The Discworld Companion (1994) (Companion)
Maskerade (1995) (Witches)
The Discworld Mapp (1995) (Map)
Feet of Clay (1996) (City Watch)
Hogfather (1996) (Death)
The Pratchett Portfolio (1996) (Art)
The Unseen University Challenge (1996) (Quizbook)
Jingo (1997) (City Watch)
The Unseen University Diary (1998) (Diary)
The Last Continent (1998) (Rincewind)
Carpe Jugulum (1998) (Witches)
The Sea and Little Fishes (1998) (Short story)
A Tourist Guide to Lancre (1998) (Map)
The Ankh-Morpork City Watch Diary (1999) (Diary)
The Fifth Elephant (1999) (City Watch)
The Science of Discworld (1999) (Science)
Nanny Ogg's Cookbook (1999) (Recipes)
Death's Domain (1999) (Map)
The Assassins' Guild Yearbook and Diary (2000)
The Truth (2000) (One-off)
Guards! Guards! (Graphic Novel) (2000) (Graphic Novel)
The Fools' Guild Yearbook and Diary (2001) (Diary)
Thief of Time (2001) (Death)
The Last Hero (2001) (Rincewind, although this is debatable)
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (2001) (One-off, children's)
The Thieves' Guild Yearbook and Diary (2002) (Diary)
Night Watch (2002) (City Watch)
Death and What Comes Next (2002) (Short story)
The Science of Discworld II: The Globe (2002)(Science)
The Wyrdest Link (2002) (Quizbook)
The (Reformed) Vampyre's Diary (2003) (Diary)
The Wee Free Men (2003) (Wee Free Men)
The New Discworld Companion (2003) (Companion)
Monstrous Regiment (2003) (One-off)
A Hat Full of Sky (2004) (Wee Free Men)
Going Postal (2004) (Post Office)
Once More* *With Footnotes (2004) (Compilation of short works)
The Art of Discworld (2004) (Art)
The Discworld Almanack (2005) (Almanack)
Thud! (2005) (City Watch)
Where's My Cow? (2005) (Picture Book)
The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch (2005) (Science)
Wintersmith (2006) (Wee Free Men)
The Post Office Diary (2007) (Diary)
Making Money (2007) (Post Office)
Unseen Academicals (2009) (The Wizards, Rincewind)

Okay maybe a shit storm is overstating it a bit. There will be some good-natured disagreement though.

My ten:

All six of the witches ones.
Sourcery
Guards! Guards!
Hogfather
Mort


(Also, the other advantage of Pratchett is that he is just a hell of a lot better than Jordan.)

Second the absolutely undeniable superiority of Pratchett to Jordan.
Some of my favourites (in no particular order, I must add)
All of the Watch books (Guards, Guards; Jingo; Men at Arms; Night Watch; Thud; etc)
Going Postal (also excellent tv special--thanks Chris!)
Making Money
The Truth
Thief of Time
Monstrous Regiment
I also liked Mort.

But they are also fun to pick up by subject:
Unseen Academicals: Football shenanigans
The Truth: journalistic shenanigans
Soul Music: rock and roll shenanigans
Making Money/Going Postal: general hilarious shenanigans
Monstrous Regiment/Jingo: war oriented shenanigans

See? SO GOOD. Also, those audiobooks are excellent, the later ones are much higher quality though.

Yes Pratchett over Jordan.

Each book does stand on its own merits (except Light Fantastic - a direct sequel) but understanding is improved significantly be reading previous entries in the canon.

You've also missed off the latest Wee Free Men novel 'I Shall Wear Midnight'

Personally I'd give you a list of books to avoid and let you read the rest (Carpe Jugulum, Monstrous Regiment aren't the best in my opinion) but if you must narrow it so far, in no particular order:

Mort (1987) (Death)
Pyramids (1989) (One-off)
Guards! Guards! (1989) (City Watch)
Reaper Man (1991) (Death)
Men at Arms (1993) (City Watch)
Hogfather (1996) (Death)
The Truth (2000) (One-off)
Night Watch (2002) (City Watch)
The Wee Free Men (2003) (Wee Free Men)
Going Postal (2004) (Post Office)

HOWEVER; I'd recommend going by subject - my personal pick is the City Watch series (Night Watch being the stand-out), then the Death series, and the Wee Free Men. The latter has the advantage of being comparitively short as they are YA.


If you want to dabble go for a stand-alone or a Post Office...or Night Watch - you won't be able to resist the rest anyway.

Come on Dan: JOIN US!

Oh yes, and Jennie is correct in recommending the Going Postal TV special - really, really good. (The Hogfather was pretty good and the Colour of Magic a little ropey if you are interested.)

Ok so I've done Mort, Colour of Magic and Nightwatch. I liked Nightwatch best so shelving Rincewind and Death for now...

Plan is to read:

Guards Guards (and a few more in that series)
Equal Rites (to try out a Witches and maybe read more)
Hogfather
The Truth
Going Postal
Making Money

How sensible is it to read all of say Guards before reading all of Witches etc?

It's perfectly sensible but you might get Vimes fatigue before the end: the Guards series is the closest Pratchett gets to a Linda La Plante / Clive Cussler style thriller series featuring the same world-weary hero ; if you can take reading an entire series about a French-Canadian bone expert or an ex-SAS private security consultant you'll probably be fine.

You could read all of the guards series, occasionally breaking them up with The Truth and the Post Office is get a view of the watch from outside of Vimes's head...

Oh and while Equal Rites does feature Granny Weatherwax as a main character, it's closer to stand-alone as it doesn't feature Nanny Ogg, Magrat or that much of Lancre...just in case you wonder.

Otherwise it's a solid list...carry on.

I've been trying to work out why it is that I like the witches books so much, in an attempt to explain why I'm the only person here who puts them at the top of my list.

I'm struggling. But I do really really like them.

Hmm, I know that I really like the whodunnit aspects of the Guards series (cf Fforde's Nursery Crime books). I also like DEATH's inability to understand humans completely.

The witches series tends to play around with familiar narratives (MacBeth, Midsummer Night's Dream, Phantom of the Opera, Cinderella) to recast them with witches as the good guys. I don't know if that's part of the appeal...

I just love Vimes. I especially love Vimes interacting with Vetinari. It cracks me up. Maybe he reminds me a bit of Chandler-esque heroes? Dark and stormy life but a hint of hope and a bit of a romantic character-wise? Far superior to La Plante and Cussler, I think, if only because he has the ability to laugh at himself occasionally.

That said, I'm a "read all the way through the group" person, so I clearly don't mind focusing on particular characters for long stretches. I, in fact, did what you're thinking about Dan and read the Watch ones, then the Witch ones, and finally the Wizard ones. (see what I did there! Ha!)

The first one I ever read was "Thief of Time" though, and it's still one of my favourites.

Of the series of books, I like Vimes/City Watch best and Death second. The first one I read was Reaperman (bought with a Haileybury "good ticket" book token IIRC).

My favorite two books, though, are one-offs: Small Gods and Pyramids.

Matt

Awesome, Reaper Man was my first as well, although I think in my case it was because it was the only one in the school library when we were in lower school. Can anyone confirm that? I'm also fairly certain that it was Tart who first recommended Pratchett to me. Heartfelt belated thanks for that Tartman.

I finally spent my first ever good-ticket book token this month in waterstones....about 15 years after getting it. I am sure I must have a fortune in them somewhere!

If it was, then I'm impressed with myself. It could have been, after all my sister was and still is an avid Pratchett fan and had all of them right from the start. Including our copy of Reaper Man signed by TP himself, twice. the top half to Amy, and the bottom half to me with a little dotted line in between.

Still I think Pryamids was one of my favourites, and Sourcery, but I do know the first 8-10ish much better than the more recent ones.

I think Equal Rites was my first and I have enjoyed the Witches ones a lot. Lord and Ladies I seem to remember fondly (but not so much now...).

I recently listened to Tony Robinson reading Small Gods which it turns out I never read. Was great.

I have just been through the bibliography picking out the books I remember liking, without thinking about groupings etc, and it would appear I like the Death ones best!

Here are my recommendations Dannyboy:

Mort (1987) (Death)
Pyramids (1989) (One-off)
Reaper Man (1991) (Death)
Small Gods (1992) (One-off)
Soul Music (1994) (Death)
The Truth (2000) (One-off)

Worth bringing this back for obvious reasons...

I am disappointed with myself. I got precisely none of the way through this list. I'm going to add Pyramids to the top and take it on holiday with me next month.