1/2
Found all these beauties at the thrift store for $1. Which would y'all reccomend reading first? I've only read the color of magic so far.
Recent bookstore haul, any i should read first?
Reading OrderMort, great start to the series, will also explain the world very well, without introducing a ton of characters.
Heard 👌
I will say that if you don't like Mort, don't let it discourage you from reading the rest of the series. Mort has a sort of young adult vibe that the rest of the books absolutely do not have barring a couple exception and it was one of the only ones I didn't finish bc it wasn't for me.
The one about the boy?
Mort!
That's the one I started with.
I'm seconding this I came to vote Mort out of the bunch
Guards! Guards! would be my pick, but there’s a lot of good choices here!
That was my first, because my dad bought it for me at the airport on our way to Menorca when I was about 10. Needless to say, I was hooked.
Dad win right there! I think I read Light Fantastic and CoM first but luckily managed to power through what I think the worst of the series (or at least my least favourite, and I know he was just finding his feed etc, but I don’t enjoy them!), and got to the juicy stuff afterwards!
I stole borrowed a load of Discworld books from my mum at some point and when I got to Guards! Guards! I was surprised to find it was signed by the man himself! I asked my mum about it and she said that, yes, she knew it was signed, and no, she couldn’t remember where she got it lol. I’d have kept it as treasure if I was her but it was just chucked in and well worn as all the other books!
Mine too, the Watch arc is probably my favorite and it give a fairly broad picture of the many aspects of Ankh-Morpork particularly if not the disk as a whole
Mort and Guards Guards are both the start of a mini-series (Death and Watch respectively), Pyramids and Small Gods are stand alone.
One to watch out for is Wyrd Sisters, which is a good starting point for the Witches books (Equal Rites technically came first and has some overlap but skipping it is less of an issue). Typically you'd read that before Witches Abroad, and Lords and Ladies.
The Discworld ones
Touché
Birdfeeder book looking pretty cool though
Small Gods
This was my introduction also and I think it’s a great way.
As a religious person I think that Small Gods is a great reminder of the core of most religions. I think the core idea of not mistaking religious observance over actually listing to what God says is great. Brutha and Vorbis are excellent characters (I am not saying Vorbis is a good guy) but they really help differentiate ways of thinking and encourage the reader to look to what is important.
Many Christians would point to C. S. Lewis as a "pop theologian" from the 20th century, I would rank this book as at least as good in helping people recognize what is important.
I initially read it as a fairly straight satire of the Catholic Church but I think you’re right, it’s not that one-dimensional.
I find it quite deep and points me to greater focus on trying to hear God in my life rather than pursue religion in a performative way. I try to focus away from the culture build up around religion and focus on my personal connection with God.
The idea of literally carrying God around with you like Brutha does and having lots of moments to leave God on the side of the road is I think a good understanding of many people's relationship of their god or diety.
Regardless of this I think some of my religious thought about Small Gods is also influenced by the book "A Canticle for Liebowz" and the post apocalyptic vision of religion there too.
Another really interesting sf take on this theme of God vs religion (and what is a god) is Raising the Stones by Sheri Tepper. Highly recommended.
Another book I like very much!
Get the bird feeder set up first, they're hungry
Then start with Small Gods
I'm pretty sure that might be a central theme of small gods, feed the animals around you.
That Donner party one should be a nice, light dinner read.
Coincidentally, I’ve actually read that one. It’s pretty good, but it’s no Discworld lol
Which one? I grabbed the indifferent stars above because I've heard good reviews, but haven't heard of the other book i snagged
Oh the indifferent stars above. Sorry I hadn’t noticed the second picture lol. A friend recommended it to me and Iliked it a lot.
My vote goes, as always, to begin with Mort.
I always recommend Reaper Man as the best starting point, myself
Pterry personally recommended Sourcery
Lots of people tend to recommend Guards Guards
All three are good options, IMO
In order: Mort, Reaper Man, Hogfather, Thief of Time, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Guards Guards, Feet of Clay. The rest you can read in any order.
My vote is for Small Gods.
Watership Down
Once upon a time in high school, a friend was getting rid of a bunch of books, and she packed up a box that she thought I would like and gave them to me. I was ridiculously grateful. I pawed eagerly through the box at home, loving everything I found, until I got to the bottom. Instead of the rest of the sci-fi and fantasy stuff that I was addicted to at the time, there was this weird nonsensical title with a picture of a rabbit on the cover.
I thought to myself, "WTF is this shit supposed to be? Rabbits?" and proceeded to read the rest of the books in the box.
Sadly for me, I read at lightspeed, and eventually I was out of new reading material. So, reluctantly, I picked up the rabbit book.
HOLY HELLS IT WAS QUITE LITERALLY THE BEST ADVENTURE STORY I HAD EVER READ IN MY LIFE. I read that book until the spine gave up the ghost and all the pages fell out. And then I bought a new copy. Along with the sequel.
All this to say, Sir Pterry is a saint, Discworld rocks my Hello Kitty socks, but I'm very glad to see people still reading Watership Down.
A lot of younger Gen X/older millennials can't read Watership Down because they were too traumatised by seeing the film at an impressionable age.
I read the book at around 25 and that nearly traumatised me. There's this one bit with
So the main cast decide to get the fuck right out of there, and I was in for a few nightmares that night.
Yeah, I read it in my late teens to see whether the film was deliberately overdoing things that were milder in the book to mess with the small children whose parents would make them watch it.
It was not. It really, really was not.
People who have not read the book might not believe, but we know: the film makers did a great job of protecting children from the worst horrors of the book. And if they had tried to remove all the horror there wouldn't be a coherent narrative left.
I know the scene; that's not how it happens. Fiver just knows the warren is bad but no one listens because he can't explain how or why. The weirdness isn't in the warren's art; it's that rabbits are making art (and dancing in greeting, and singing to their kittens) at all. Rabbits fighting for survival have no time for art, past storytelling.
They don't worship the man, and it's just old vegetable bits, not dinner scraps. Still flayrah as far as the rabbits are concerned. And it's not a warren rabbit who gets caught in the snare; it's Bigwig. They all help him out of it (and temporarily think he's dead; one of my favorite lines is "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.") and then decide to kill the big rabbits and take over the warren for themselves.
And that's when Fiver screams at them, blasphemes ("O embleer Frith!", considered a "shocking impiety" by the others), and then informs them that the entire warren is snared and that's why all the rabbits are so weird. They're "living in the enemy's warren and paying his price."
And none of the rabbits consider men "good". Hardly anyone believes Hazel at the end that a man brought him home in a hrududu- Hyzenthlay only believes it because she had a vision.
Wow. I will admit I misremembered what I read many years ago, but did you have to be quite so scolding when you corrected me?
My apologies for coming across as "scolding". I'm a preschool teacher and it does come through sometimes. Also I'm just incredibly passionate about this book; I got lots of favorites, but this is really up there.
A lot of younger Gen X/older millennials
yup anyone born between 1976-1991
Terry Pratchett books are, for the most part, divided into series. Each series has a first book which is often a better place to start than in the middle.
I found this flowchart particularly helpful!
https://images.app.goo.gl/d1cEn2PCrxjYPNTr9
As a result I would recommend Guards guards, or Mort, because each of them start one of those series.
You've also got a few standalone books like pyramids and small gods that could be read on their own. But personally I think that those books are best when you've got a little bit more discworld under your belt, and you kind of know how things work.
Also, I really like this kind of tongue and cheek flowchart for deciding where in the discworld to start reading!
Put them in publication order and go straight through.
The bird feeder book.
The first book in the Discworld I ever read was Reaper Man (which is in the Death series) when I was a teenager. However, the first book in the death series is Mort which I would recommend.
My first book was Thief of Time. Any order is good
My suggested start order is Small Gods (intro to the style) -> Pyramids (intro to the setting) -> Guards! Guards! (intro to my favorite subseries)
alternately could go Mort instead of G!G! to start the Death series which is perhaps even better, but Mort itself isn't as good as G!G! (still great)
Mort/Guards! Guards!/Clockwork Orange
Guards! Guards!
Then look for the suggested reading order chart.
Mort or Guards if it were me. I'm very jealous!
I really hate those covers. Excellent haul though, I’m longing for the day I find my treasure trove find like this. But with the artwork I grew up with, not a fan of these “put a pic of something vaguely resembling the title” attempts at artwork.
Guards! Guards! Or Mort would be my pick.
I started discworld with small gods, so that or Guards! Guards! (One of my favourites) Or Mort. Both of those are starts to the city watch and death sub series respectively :)
My recommendation: read them in published order. I feel I made a mistake by following reading guides, every time I got near the end of one series (for example, the city guard ones) the book would drop references to other books that chronologically had already taken place, and that made it a bit less enjoyable for me.
Sourcery is the earliest by publication date, Small Gods is the earliest in the Discworld timeline (not that it matters, since it's a one-off story). Mort was the first of what I'd (completely subjectively) call 'peak Discworld'.
I'd start with Guards! Guards! or Wyrd Sisters. Then aim at the next in each set (Watch or Witches). Then read them all anyway 😉🤣
If you’ve read TCoM, have you not read The Light Fantastic? It’s the only direct sequel in the series, where events start immediately where they left off at the end of The Color of Magic.
If you want to spend the rest of your life terrified of rabbits, Watership Down. Otherwise, Small Gods.
Your furst three should be Mort, Small Gods and Guards! Guards!
In whichever order you want, but those three first.
The Birdfeeder Book, obviously.
Is this what the US covers look like? I've seen these ones from time to time online but never in person.
Small Gods is my favourite, but it’s more of a standalone. Mort is a close second, and that’s a better intro to the world and the series, I think.
Among these, either Mort or Guards Guards would be best to start with
Mort
Guards, Guards! Or maybe Mort first. They both start well and have recurring characters in their respective series’s
The indifferent stars above is great 🤣🤣
I think Guards! Guards! Is the best first one to start Discworld with.
Read page 1 of each book, then page 2, then 3, etc.
Welcome to /r/Discworld! Please read the rules/flair information before posting .
Our current megathreads are as follows:
API Protest Poll - a poll regarding the future action of the sub in protest at Reddit's API changes.
GNU Terry Pratchett - for all GNU requests, to keep their names going.
AI Generated Content - for all AI Content, including images, stories, questions, training etc.
[ GNU Terry Pratchett ]
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.