Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad

A couple of weeks ago I read a lot of Terry Pratchett in memory of a great author and I'm just now getting around to actually talking about what I read. 

I read The Bromeliad (Truckers, Diggers and Wings) for the first time and now I can totally see why it's so many people's way in to Pratchett. Incidentally, if you'd like to see my recommendations for where to start if you've never read any, I wrote a post about that!

The basic premise of the trilogy is that our world are full of little 4 inch high creatures called nomes who move so fast that humans have no idea they even exist. The story begins when the few nomes left living outside, led by Masklin, leave their home on the back of a truck and arrive at 'the Store.' The store nomes think that the store is the entire world and that its founder, Arnold Bros (Est. 1905) is God, and the nomes from outside have their work cut out for them to fit into their new surroundings! 

All three books are very short and packed full of Pratchett's trademark satirical wit. Personally I loved how well big ideas were slipped in while making them seem like just part of a book for kids. I also loved the subtlety of the story, and towards the end of Wings particularly there was a really lovely bit which made me go 'aaaawwwwww'. If you enjoy Pratchett's writing you should definitely read these books. If you've never read any Pratchett, Truckers is a great place to start.  

Christmas Book Haul

So Christmas happened and it was awesome despite some ridiculous wind in Kent on Monday night while we were trying to get to London, but due to our ninja skills (for which read the fact that we know that the Congestion charge ends at 7pm and so went straight through Central London instead of sitting on the M25 which was at a standstill like everybody else) the journey only took about ten minutes longer than usual and we didn't blow off the road at all, so that was good. I got a lot of books this year, but actually I have something more important to tell you all. Some of you already know and some will have seen it on Twitter, Facebook or whatever, but this is my other big news and also part of the reason I've been a rubbish blogger lately!

The photo is horrendous because I took a photo of the scan photo on my phone, buuuuuuuut it's a picture of baby number two who is due mid June :-) Four days after my birthday, to be precise, so keep your fingers crossed it's either on time or late because I really don't want to spend my birthday in hospital! We're all very excited, as well as being slightly overwhelmed and terrified at the thought of how we will cope with a newborn and a 20 month old, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it! Everything's going well so far, the baby has all the organs and limbs its supposed to at this point and I've just been feeling knackered, but so far so good!

So now onto the books! This picture is missing a couple, because I couldn't find them, but here's what I got:

From bottom to top:

• The Quilters Bible by Linda Clements was from my Grandma because my mum and dad got me a basic quilting supplies set and because I obviously need another crafty hobby which takes up lots of space! I'll be blogging about it more on my craft blog, if you're interested!
• The Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang was from Rhys and probably the best present I got this year (and I got some pretty awesome stuff). It's beautiful and in a box and illustrated and just the most amazing thing. For those who are less into fairytales than I am, there's a whole series of these books, in different colours and each colour features different types of fairytales or fairytales from different parts of the world. They're also pretty hard to find so this was doubly amazing. 
• The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden was also from my parents. I have a bit of a problem with cookery book collecting and really like experimenting with making different types of foods so this will fit into the collection very well! I also got The Great British Bakeoff: Everyday from Ellie which isn't in the picture because it's already buried in my kitchen on the cookery book case!
• Phantasies by George MacDonald I got from my sister, who thought it looked cool and basically bought it for me because she wants to read it, which is pretty much what we do for each other! It's also folklorey and has gorgeous illustrations so I'm excited about that one!
• Then there's a tiny book of Christmassy knitting patterns that I got in my stocking and I can't see or remember the title, because I cleared my books up already but it looks fun!
• The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi looks really interesting and was also in my stocking. 
• Black Thorn, White Rose by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling and The Giver by Lois Lowry were presents from the lovely Charlotte who must be telepathic because I've been thinking about them both lately and how much I want to read them! 
• Babysitters' Winter Holiday by Ann M. Martin is a total blast from the past and I made Rhys put it in my stocking because I found it in a charity shop for 10p and had never read this one of the specials! As a teenager I was seriously obsessed with the Babysitters Club and to be honest it's still really easy, enjoyable reading even if it is ridiculously dated. It's kind of my guilty pleasure. 
• Snuff by Terry Pratchett my sisters' got for me because I bought it for my dad just after it came out, read it then but don't actually own it, so that was nice. I also got Dodger in my stocking because that was my dad's present last year and I didn't get to test read it because Rhys was reading it instead! I've already started it and it's great so far!
• False Gods of Rome by Robert Fabbri is a historical fiction book I think, it turned up in my stocking because my sister who is in charge of the book section in her local Oxfam shop, did a mystery Christmas book lucky dip thing and grabbed me one. It looks interesting!
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the only Fitzgerald book I don't actually own I think, despite having read and loved it way back in college. I'm really happy I finally have a copy and thanks to my lovely sisters for getting it for me!

I also got and have already read but now can't find Attachments by Rainbow Rowell from Laura. Once I find it there will be a review, because that book is amazing. 

And that's it for now I think! I got lots of other stuff for Christmas which we're currently trying to fit in the house. If you want to see a picture of the gorgeous quilt my aunty made for Benji, pop over to the craft blog! I'm also ridiculously proud of myself for finishing A Tale of Two Cities just before Christmas and am thinking I might make reading Dickens in December a yearly thing. What do you think? How was everybody's Christmas and what books did you get? 

Review: - Snuff by Terry Pratchett



Snuff is, unbelievably, the thirty ninth book in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. If you haven’t heard about Terry Pratchett, the Discworld, or at the very least seen one of the BBC adaptations of either The Colour of Magic, Hogfather, or Going Postal, then I really want to know how you’ve managed it. Sir Terry also manages to cunningly release a new book pretty much every October/November time, just in time for Christmas, and it has become a tradition for me to buy the hardback for my dad as his Christmas present, and surreptitiously read it before wrapping it and giving it to him, along with my opinion of it. It’s a win – win situation.

On best form, Pratchett is amazingly fluid, engrossing and laugh-out-loud hilarious. Snuff, in my opinion, wasn’t his best form. However, it was still incredibly good.

Blurb-y bit from Goodreads:

As with all of Terry Pratchett’s books, Snuff had a considerable amount of hype surrounding it, and I read somewhere during my pre-publication perusal of Snuff related stuff, that Terry Pratchett’s books are social satires (which I had, not being completely dense, managed to realise), but I never really thought about how they often relate to topical issues. Really, the book is about goblins and their second class status within Discworld society.

According to the writer of the best-selling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.

And Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder.

He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches, and occasionally snookered out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

They say that in the end all sins are forgiven.

But not quite all...

Readers of the Discworld series will know that within the series, there are several mini series focusing on different (and often overlapping) sets of characters, among which are the witches, the Watch, the Nac mac Feegle, and the wizards of the Unseen University. Sam Vimes has featured in several previous novels featuring the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, including Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, and Thud!, many of which are among my personal favourites. The storyline of Snuff was very well thought out and included the requisite amount of sneaking, fighting with improvised weapons, vaguely inappropriate, toilet-related jokes, making-it-up-as-you-go-along and accidental bravery, and it made me laugh out loud in public places on several occasions. It also dragged me away back into the world of the Disc and its inhabitants which I appreciated, as lately the whole separating myself from reality thing isn’t happening as much as it used to with reading. The Night Circus (no, I will never stop going on about it) was the last book to do that successfully and left me worried that nothing else ever would, so well done Mr. Pratchett!

Snuff is also slightly reminiscent of earlier books in as much as Commander Vimes manages to find himself a well meaning but undertrained, slightly bumbling country policeman to train up and mentor, thus turning his ‘holiday’ into work while still preserving the illusion that he has merely been dragged into someone else’s problem as is helping them out as nothing more than his duty as a landlord.

As ever, I loved the characters, from old favourite like Fred Colon and Captain Carrot to new ones such as a harp – playing Goblin called Tears of the Mushroom. Also hilarious was Commander Vimes’ son Sam’s obsession with and collection of different types of animal poo. I find Terry Pratchett very often gets the tone of small children exactly right, hence why many of his books are so popular with them. He also gets the tone of the long suffering parent, answering what feels like the hundredth question of the day about poo spot on.

What starts off as an investigation into a missing blacksmith and a dead Goblin turns into something much larger, and as the quest for answers progresses, Vimes and local policeman Feeney Upshot, assisted as ever by Willikins, Commander Vimes’ loyal gentlemen’s gentlemen, find themselves embroiled in something much larger than simple murder....

Also I’d just like to add that Sir Terry Pratchett has lately garnered a lot of attention here in the UK for his views on euthanasia. As people may know, Mr Pratchett was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers in 2007, and may I just say that anybody worrying about his memory may stop doing so right now. The amount of details from previous books that raise their heads in Snuff is quite frankly incredible. To be honest, I don’t think I, an Alzheimer free person, would be able to keep anywhere near that level of detail straight, so I’m amazed and impressed that he can.

If you generally enjoy Mr. Pratchett, or if you just want something funny and engrossing to read, then I would suggest that Snuff is a good option. I thoroughly enjoyed myself from start to finish and I hope that there will be many more Discworld books to come.



Review: The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

Cohen the Barbarian. He's been a legend in his own lifetime.
He can remember the good old days of high adventure, when being a Hero meant one didn't have to worry about aching backs and lawyers and civilization. But these days, he can't always remember just where he put his teeth...So now, with his ancient (yet still trusty) sword and new walking stick in hand, Cohen gathers a group of his old -- very old -- friends to embark on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain of Discworld and meet the gods.It's time the Last Hero in the world returns what the first hero stole. Trouble is, that'll mean the end of the world, if no one stops him in time.

Synopsis from Goodreads

Until recently, I though I'd read all of Terry Pratchett's books. Then I discovered there are actually a few that I don't remember, so may possibly not have read. This, being all graphicy and illustrated (beautifully, I may add), I though I'd read it for the Graphic Novel Challenge, although I'm not sure it counts, as the story isn't actually told through the pictures, but they definately enhance it! Also, it was big enough to not fit in my bag, so I'm counting it!

Basically, this is a story about heroes and Gods and the end of the world. But the thing I love about Terry Pratchett is that he takes such huge events as death, religion, and even the Post Office, and just makes them really really funny.

If it hadn't been for its' huge format, meaning I couldn't physically take it out of the house, I would probably have finished this within a couple of days. I loved the fact that it was a book that you could read and completely absorb and understand, without really having to pay attention to it at all. Pratchett's storytelling style is also very similar to my dads, which I love. When we were kids, my dad used to tell us 'made up stories', that went on for days at a time, and eventually went on to have sequel after sequel, and become series, and they were always very 'and then this happened, and then something else happened', but the something else would always be very bizarre, and they were always hilariously funny. It always felt a bit accidental, and Pratchett's writing is the same, so it kind of felt like he took over when I felt I was 'too old' to listen to bedtime stories anymore.

What else can I say? The man's a genius.

Rating: *****