Category: Terry Pratchett

The Good Books 2021

Here are the books that I enjoyed most in 2021. You can read about those I liked best in 2020 here. Biography/memoir/autobiography/history The Element of Lavishness, Letters between Sylvia Townsend Warner and William Maxwell was a Christmas present from 2020 that got shunted into the waiting room while I read her letters to and from … Continue reading The Good Books 2021 →

Stone stories: N K Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate

When Terry Pratchett wanted to explore how trolls might name themselves, he used mineralogy. Jade was one of the first Pratchett trolls to have a name. It was curiously dignifying as well as amusingly paradoxical (how could a lump of rock have a name, ho ho ho). Pratchett continued to dignify his troll characters rather … Continue reading Stone stories: N K Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate →

London calling: Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels

I feel I’ve come rather late to the fair with Kate Griffin’s sorcerers-in-London series, since the first one came out in 2009. I was looking stupidly at A Madness of Angels in a bookshop last autumn, wondering why it wasn’t ringing bells – surely I’d read all the magical-London novels in print? – and was … Continue reading London calling: Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels →

Framework, unfinished: Terry Pratchett’s The Shepherd’s Crown

You know that feeling of ‘damn, she got there before me’? That’s what I felt, listening to Helen Lewis on the New Statesman podcast talking about the last Terry Pratchett novel, The Shepherd’s Crown. At every point she made, I nodded, and chopped the celery a little more crossly while admiring, of course, her perspicacity in … Continue reading Framework, unfinished: Terry Pratchett’s The Shepherd’s Crown →

Tell Me What You Read: Wendy Bryant

In Tell Me What You Read, a new feature on this blog, I interview well-kenned folk in public life about how their reading has shaped their lives, in the past and now.  This week, Wendy Bryant, senior lecturer in occupational therapy at the University of Essex, artist and dog-walker Tell me which authors, or what reading, you … Continue reading Tell Me What You Read: Wendy Bryant →

Reading Terry Pratchett: a beginner’s guide

A short list of suggestions for how to start reading Terry Pratchett's novels, because the list is now closed. Guards, Guards, for the perfect, all-in-one introduction to Discworld's major city, to its plethora of characters and races, and to the immortal Vimes. Monstrous Regiment, for searing satire on feminism, war-mongering and class. I Shall Wear … Continue reading Reading Terry Pratchett: a beginner’s guide →

Hooting at What We Do In The Shadows

A vampire film is not my usual tipple, but I do love a spoof. Specially when it's a mockumentary dripping with blood; when the jokes just keep on coming; when the acting is so vérité that the idea of Wellington's nightlife and suburbia being inhabited by vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies seems totally plausible. The superb … Continue reading Hooting at What We Do In The Shadows →