Books

Personally I'd start with Reaper Man, but they're all really good.

If you don't already know, Pratchett liked to build multiple ongoing series within the broader Discworld universe. Basically if Discworld is the MCU then within it you get your Captain America movies and your Iron Man movies and so on.

In the case of Discworld, the big ones to know about are:

• Rincewind - Incompetent, cowardly wizard stumbles through inadvertent adventures.
• Death - The Sandman style cosmic weirdness.
• The City Watch - Fantasy crime procedurals.
• The Witches - Witches dealing with darkly irreverent takes on classic horror tropes.
• Moist Von Lipwig - A conman gets strong armed into running civic institutions.

What you have acquired is the second book of the Death series (Reaper Man), the second book of the Witches (Wyrd Sisters), and two largely standalone books (Small Gods and Moving Pictures). The first two can both be read without reading the preceding novels in their respective series, but it might not hurt to try to track those down first. You'd be looking for Mort and Equal Rites respectively.

In general Discworld stands up fairly well to reading out of order, and you certainly should not try to read the whole thing chronologically (the first two books, especially, are pretty bad). The best approach is to pick a single sub series and read that in order. If you start with those four, based which you like best I'd continue with that series or a related one. Reaper Man or Wyrd Sisters, continue with that series. Moving Pictures, you'll probably want more stuff set in Ank Morpork like the city watch and the Moist Von Lipwig / "Industrial revolution" series. Small Gods is mostly its own thing, but you'll get more of that vibe with Rincewind.

EVENTUALLY, YOU WILL GET THIS REFERENCE.

Oh, man, you have NO idea. Almost envious actually, Pratchett is always excellent.

While each of those books can be enjoyed on their own, they are part of two larger cycles.

The first being the "Discworld" series, 41 books from 1983 to 2015.

Then, within the larger Discworld Cycle, there are sub-stories.

"Reaper Man" is the second of the "Death" books, which started with "Mort", then continues with Soul Music, The Hogfather, and Thief of Time.

"Wyrd Sisters" is the second of the "Witches" books, starting with "Equal Rites" and continuing with Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, Carpe Jugulum, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight, and the Shepherd's Crown.

"Moving Pictures" is the first of the "Industrial Revolution" series in Discworld. Followed by The Truth, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, Unseen Acedemicals, Snuff, and Raising Steam.

"Small Gods" is a stand alone novel, unconnected to the other stories.

No, I am not crazy enough to remember all this... there are wikis. :)

Small Gods is my standard "so you've never read discworld" recommendation. It's stand alone, his style is well in the groove, ymmv depending on how well you take some criticism of religion. All if them are great.

'Small Gods' is one of my favourite Pratchett books. I can't beleive it hasn't been made into a movie yet.

Small Gods first. It's one of the better standalone books in the discworld universe

Every book in the discworld series is great. Here's a reading order guide. Again, they're all great on their own, but I did find that world building adds to the experience if you manage to follow the order somewhat.

Pyramids and Mort are two of my favourite books.

everything in the dyskworld series is great, you're in for a good time

This is a really good starting assortment!

Wyrd Sisters is a take on MacBeth and an introduction to the Discworld Witches, whose approach to magic is distinct from that of the Wizards.

Small Gods stands on its own, set in the past compared to the others, but is also foundational in laying out the way belief feeds deities, and the difference between the power of religious institutions and true faith. Both Om and the teachings of Brutha resurface in later books, as do other Small Gods.

Reaper Man delves into the character of Death, everyone's favorite anthropomorphic personification. I won't quote the line that always brings tears to my eyes, but you'll know. Good thing it's in all caps so it's readable through the blur.

And Moving Pictures which is full of early-Hollywood cameos and literal movie magic, introduces Gaspode, and includes the Night Watch, that motley crew of not-completely-bad and mostly nonmagical cops struggling to preserve some measure of safety and sanity in Ankh-Morpork. This time there are eldritch forces at work (again) along with of course the venality and ignorance of people. The Patrician insists on restoring the usual balance of organized crime.

Read them all, because they're very different from each other.

The whole "watch series" (ofk the book one) is my favorite.

Those are all absolute bangers and can be read independently of each other in any order.

There are references in many of the books to the events in Small Gods, but no requirement to read it beforehand.

There's a bunch of running arcs in Pratchett's works and you have a book from Death and a book from Witches, but they don't have to be read in series sequence to be enjoyed.

I recommend reading them

Point one: you can’t go wrong with Pratchett.

I only read Small Gods, you’ll have to give me feedback on the others after you are done!

Small tangential comment: never skip Pratchett’s footnotes!

Read all 41 books three times over. Neat thing is that reading order doesn't matter so much. My first was #20.

Reaper Man is an excellent standalone story featuring Death (tall, bony, robe and scythe...) as the protagonist. Wyrd Sisters is the first of the Witches of Lancre series (discounting Equal Rites, wherein Granny Weatherwax appears but is not depicted quite as her fully formed character yet), and Moving Pictures is the first of the series dealing with various phenomena which attempt to modernize the world.

Small Gods is also broadly a standalone story which mercilessly skewers the rise of Christianity from its humble desert beginnings up to the largess and insanity of the Inquisition, except with the key difference of the god in question being very much real, even if none of his ostensible followers except one actually believe in him anymore — despite the rest of them going around behaving very badly in his name.

Start with Reaper Man.

There isn't really a bad Discworld novel, you've definitely got some great jumping off points. They're all basically stand alone apart from one specific entry in the Witches cycle (Lords and Ladies) that is recommended to read after the preceeding one (Witches Abroad) so you won't have any issues picking one and going for it. Moving Pictures is a personal favourite but all 4 are great.

Next step is to probably get a Rincewind novel and a City Watch one.

I absolutely love the discworld series!! I haven't read all of them so I couldn't say which of those is the best, but moving pictures wasn't bad. I'm really more partial to the city watch "series" that starts with Guards Guards! I will say that I didn't really get sucked into the "death" series that Reaper Man is a part of.

Here's a site that shows the various orders you could read them in:

https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/

They have overarching storylines that connect books, but I don't think you need to see them as Book I, Book II, Book III.

I'd say start with small gods cause it's hilarious and standalone but I'd also say wyrd sisters cause Granny Weatherwax is the best character in all of discworld and I love her and her stories are the best.