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There's plenty I could list, but when it comes to seeing the world through a new lens it's all about Discworld. Just keep reading and it'll change you. Sir Pratchett's understanding of people, society, and philosophy is phenomenal.
I've wanted to read the series for a while, but getting into it seems so intimidating because of just how much Sir Terry wrote. Do you have a good starting recommendation?
Which book to read quiz.
While there are recurring characters, locations, themes and ideas, each book is an independent, self contained story. As the other commenter mentioned, it doesn't really matter where you start.
Also, there may be a large number of books, but they are all really short and easy/quick to read. I went from being intimidated by the number of books in the series when I picked up The Colour of Magic to crying during the epilogue in The Sheppard's Crown in an eye blink.
Obligatory, here's what I got post lol
Wyrd sisters...was not expecting the quiz to so heavily focus me on witches...not sure if thats a feature or a bug of my interpreting, idk much about discworld but maybe there's only like 5 starter books and that's why it focused me on witches so much.
It's doesn't really matter where you start but realize that it's a bunch of stories that are told of the same place. So there's stories about set characters and some of just one story of the characters. The wizards are something that runs through all the stories so it really does make sense to start with The Color of Magic. It will introduce you to the style of story that will fill out the whole thing.
There's the witches, the wizards, Death, the watch, and books about the other guild's. The witches are a lot of fun. If you don't really care for the specific group, you you can jump around in order. Mostly once you understand the groups, you can read anything in whatever order
Discworld as a collection is intimidating. The real secret is that it's not a series, but a kind of pile. You can really start almost anywhere and read whatever.
That said, there's kind of short sets with the same characters in groups throughout the books. I'd point people to these ones as reasonable starting points:
I'm sure other people will have various other suggestions or opinions and we're all likely correct for our own reasons. There's very little in Discord that isn't top tier writing.
Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn't much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.
After finishing those, I knew I'd want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you'd get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren't in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).
When in doubt, start with the Watch: Guards! Guards!. Can't go wrong.
Not that I'm an expert, but I did create /r/Discworld, so I got to see a lot of opinions.
There's a couple of main philosophies. The one I agree with less is reading "subseries". First of all, many books really imho cross thos lines anyway, so you're going to miss stuff...... but........ that's one option.
The thing is, Sir Pratchett himself wasn't so happy with his first coupld of books. The Colour of Magic is a bit different - he was writing as a parody of fantasy. But as he went along, things kinda took off and it became a thing.
Frankly, my advice: Just suck it up. Colour of Magic isn't bad. Commit to at least reading through Mort, which is IIRC the 4th novel.
If that makes you nervous, then choose one or more of the traditional starting ones: Mort, Small Gods, Guards! Guards!. If you read all three of those and like it, just go back to Colour of Magic and read in publication order. The world evolves as he writes and it's a better experience.
But if you get enthralled with the night watch over the witches or whatever, the google "Discworld reading guide" and you'll find it and can see the "subseries" and do as you please.
If you're anything like me, though, starting at around Mort and from then on....... I always read a novel when it came out and it was pretty good, but when I re-read it almost immediately, I noticed so many more things. That's how I fell in love with the books. They are not one-time reads.
I'm on around my eighth or so full readthrough of the entire series - on Making Money right now. I don't think everyone will do that many, but for me, almost all the books are old friends, and I still notice new little details.
His writing is so........ compact. So many scenes with more than one subtext going on. He often writes scenes with dialogue happening that's critical to the story, but something in the background that just adds to the world might be happening at the same time.
I think specifically where a couple of bumbling night watch are talking about something, but as they're sitting there, they're watching a man slowly paint the name of his boat on his boat, but instead of painting "PRIDE OF ANKH-MORPORK" he's painted "PRID", so they're talking back and forth, anticipating the painter noticing..... and at the end of the scene, he does. And it's just so.......... so human, so delightful. The novels truly taught me the beauty of humanity.
There is, however, probably no real wrong way to read them. Someone on r/discworld claimed to be reading them in literally reverse publication order and enjoying them. So that's probably valid. But I would say: publication order hands down. Or whatever way you'll actually go out and get started. :)
This here. This is what I recommend to everyone I introduce to Discworld.
I haven't kept count of how many readthroughs I've done, but every few years I do one too. I had my copy of Guards Guards rebound recently because it was literally falling to pieces.
We lost all our books to Hurricane Michael, but for me, this is not so much a problem as I struggle with books these days, but my phone works fine as a reader, so I have them all electronically. :)
There's no bad onramp to that world. Very few of the books require you to have read the others, and there isn't much of a strict chronology. Apparently Pratchett recommended that people start with Sourcery, but that's not set in stone.
On r/discworld, Mort, Guards! Guards!, and Small Gods were the three most recommended ones to start, besides those like me who argue for publication order (with the disclaimer about the first 2-3 or so)
Small Gods is probably one of the greatest books I've ever read. I fucking love it so much.
Near the end of my first read through, and it's been hard for me to believe one guy wrote so many different points of view so well. I've been given both a lot of new perspectives to consider, and I've gotten good reminders of things that I already believed, but had gotten a little bit forgotten as things happen and I've become a little jaded toward some things.
Lately, having just finished Making Money, I've been thinking again about what type of ruler Lord Vetinari is. He's got a lot of aspects that I feel I wouldn't like to him and his leadership style, but I also feel no one comes close to being a better choice for Ankh-Morepork. Plot armor certainly helps, but whenever he puts plots in motion, it's hard to argue with results,
I also like how the Nights Watch doesn't get rid of its derelicts, it finds ways for them to be successful. I have been around some very difficult people, but very few that are totally useless, and once you can narrow down what their strengths are, you can find a lot of value and often a decent person in most everyone.
Also a big fan of Death! Some of the best moments of justice and sweetest of rewards have come from him.
He's basically a benevolent dictator. He adopts the role of a tyrant for pragmatic reasons, but he seems to sincerely care about the well-being of Ankh-Morporkians.
It makes me wonder if that's ever truly possible. And I'm not as sure it's the citizens he protects so much as the city itself. He's either at least been partially responsible for some killings and will let people die when it benefits not so much himself, but the proper functioning of the city.
Someone like him seems crucial to ensuring a great society, but how do you find someone like that, what would keep them from crossing the line into a less altruistic authority, and what does that society do when that person is inevitably gone?
Him and House from Fallout have been two people I've spent a lot of time thinking about. Both are capable of bringing order out of chaos, but it's a very fine line they seem to walk.
I like Vetinari in fiction, but I'm unsure how I'd feel in real life. To most people he is still scary and seemingly a threat. Only a select few know most of it is just reputation and show.
I'd say benevolent dictators are absolutely possible, but they are impossible to plan for. If there is room for any dictator, there is no good way to filter that to only benevolent ones. I think the best practical political systems tend to assume people will not be benevolent, so try and set things up so that people are incentivized to act benevolently as much as possible.
I think he'd consider that a distinction without difference. The city is the citizens.
The "proper functioning of the city" is a state of relative harmony and peace between the citizens. Most of those that found their end at his direction were rather opposed to the "proper functioning of the city".
I surmise that much of his efforts in building the integrity of the city, and its institutions, might be said to constitute an inoculation of sorts against any "greedy and clumsy" successors.
I do like book Vetinari, purely because we do have those insights to his thought process and that as he's a fictional character, his methods will work as intended.
As I've watched the representative democracy in the US make its faults very obvious, it's got me questioning other types of leadership. Distributed power like communism or anarchism have some appealing features, but radically changing any government seems to require some form of authoritarianism to see the change through and to maintain it. That seems a lot like what Vetinari did to stabilize the city. He's great as a fictional leader, and I think his grey areas highlight some important differences between him, and let's say, Carrot.
Thinking we could find a real life Vetinari is what still concerns me about a political revolution, as so many real people will promise what he brought to a place like Ankh, but then instead prioritize themselves. He makes me both believe a little more that we could have a successful change in governance, but then everything in the real world reminds me it is fiction. Not impossible, but not likely as real humans are so fallible.
Discworld books feel the opposite of real life in that way. In the books, we know more of Vetinari than we do of the life of most peasants, and what we do know of those peasants, we know they fear Vetinari and think he's kinda evil, while we the readers know he's not. In real life, we see leaders try and present the good side, usually to con us, and be evil behind the scenes. If we saw someone acting like Vetinari, most of us would probably not support him, although Trumpism shows that to maybe not be so reliable, but I'm not sold on him really being altruistic behind the scenes for many, many reasons.
So while I support Vetinari in the books, it just feel paradoxical how we could ever get such a leader for real.
Yes the benevolent dictator archetype only really works in fiction. Philosopher kings have been suggested as the most efficient form of government for thousands of years, but the difficulty is in finding them in the real world. We could never fully trust any would-be tyrant.