Dreaming of Other Books

I'm doing a lot of required reading right now. All of it is good, but --as always when confronted with requirements-- I find myself day-dreaming about the non-required reading I could be doing. My current fantasy is that on my next sabbatical I will read all the novels of Terry Pratchett in sequence. (Of course, then, I would have to read them, and I would begin to resent the project. But never mind that right now.) In the meantime, here's someone else appreciating Pratchett:

Here is Pratchett describing a very grand piece of furniture: "Probably the last remaining tree of some rare, exotic species had been hewn to make the chairman's desk, which was an object of desire and big enough to bury people in." Very nice, with a touch of nastiness. And let us see if the same page where this appears contains another good one. Yes, near the bottom: Mr. Fusspots, an ugly lapdog, resembles "those goldfish with the huge bulging eyes that looked as though they were about to explode."

(Thanks to Jenny Davidson for the link.)

Terry Pratchett...

...has recently become one of my favorite authors. I'm late to the Discworld (and other intriguing worlds) party, I know, but I have been working my way through the oeuvre and have not yet been disappointed. Confused, yes, but not disappointed. I am an especially big fan of the Tiffany Aching books (The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith) and am looking forward to more.

Apparently Pratchett is, too, but this news does worry me--for the unwritten books, yes, but also for the man and the life he's living. Still, you've got to love a man who can talk about an Alzheimer's diagnosis like this:

He told fans the statement should be interpreted as "I am not dead".

"I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else," he said.

"For me, this may be further off than you think. It's too soon to tell.

"I know it's a very human thing to say 'is there anything I can do', but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry."