The Truth by Terry Pratchett

I have a somewhat potted history with the Discworld series. I love them and even hosted a Terry Pratchett Reading Challenge back in 2010. They make me laugh and I think that Pratchett was just so clever with his observations on life and death, whether you are talking about the big things in life or just the inane. And yet, I have only read the first 9 books in the series, some more than once, plus a couple of other random books here and there, in particular the Industrial books. It's a good 7 years since I read a new Discworld book. And then there is Hogfather.

According to my spreadsheet which I started back in 2005 I first read Hogfather in 2007. In 2021, I listened to the audiobook in the lead up to Christmas, and then I have listened to it every year since. It's become part of my annual Christmas traditions!

Based on that it is probably a bit strange that I chose to listen to The Truth, especially seeing as I generally have a big aversion to reading series out of order, but I did have good reason. My read-on-a-theme bookclubs theme for our February meeting was 25. The Truth is both book 25 in the Discworld series, and was published in the year 2000, which makes it 25 years old! Perfect for the theme!

The Truth is about a man called William de Worde, who accidently becomes the editor of the first newspaper in Ankh-Morpork. He brings together a disparate group of people who become the staff of the newspaper. There are the dwarves who do the typesetting and printing, Sacharissa Cripslock, the woman reporter, Otto the vampire iconographer and more! William is determined that he will share the Truth, but soon the paper brings all kind of attention on him. He also does not want the paper to become just a vehicle for stories about funny shaped vegetables. When Lord Veterinari is accused of a terrible crime, William suddenly finds himself involved in the story rather than just reporting the story. The Watch aren't happy with him, the guilds aren't happy with him. In short, no one is really happy with him!

There are many familiar characters within these pages, from Foul Ole Ron and his friends, to CMOT Dibbler, the Watch and more. Then there are the new characters, in particular the bad guys Mr Pin and Mr Tulip. These are career criminals, and pretty violent ones at that, and yet even then Pratchett manages to give at least one of them some nuance. Mr Tulip is a thug and yet he has a strong appreciation for fine art!

Whilst I did enjoy the story and narration of this book, I must confess that I struggled a bit with getting into the audiobook. I think this is mainly because for the last 4 years I have listened to the audio of Hogfather which is narrated by Sian Clifford, and it took me a while to get used to Matthew Baynton's narration. Fortunately Bill Nighy was still there for the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz still made an appearance as DEATH, but he didn't come onto the page until around 75% of the way through the book. I also missed Susan.

My favourite part of the narration of this book was Otto the vampire iconographer. I loved the way that this character was performed, especially the parts where he was taking flash photography and that caused him to disintegrate, having to be revived with a drop of non human blood otherwise he would break his vow of abstinence as part of the black ribbon society (think Alcoholics Anonymous for vampires). It literally made me laugh out loud many times!

As usual, there are the cutting observations of life and death. There is one scene where Death is meeting a character and the character says something along the lines of is this where my life flashes before my eyes and Death responds with this is where how others saw your life flashes before your eyes. So clever.

When I think about all the social commentary in the Discworld books, I can't help wonder what Sir Terry might make of everything going on in the world right now.

My plan is to read or listen to another Discworld book in the next few months. Or if not, I will be very likely to be revisiting Hogfather come December for my next reread/listen.

March Magics is an annual event to celebrate both Diana Wynn-Jones and Terry Pratchett. It is now hosted by Calmgrove Books

This week

I'm reading

It's been a busy reading week with some great reads! It's been a pretty good start to the year with already having read two 5 star books. I only had three 5 star reads all of last year!

I finished The Paris Bookshop for the Brokenhearted by Rebecca Raisin which was my the second of my 5 star reads. My review for this will be up this week. For those playing along at home, the first 5 star read was Midnight in Paris by Gillian Harvey.

I snuck in a non review read, That Island Feeling by Aussie author Karina May. I am going to an author event tomorrow night and I wanted to ensure that I had read her book before I went. It was my first read by her, and I will be reading more as I really enjoyed this one!

Then it was back to review reads where I read The House of Echoes by Alexandra Walsh. I don't read that many Tudor books any more, and I did like this one. You can read my review here!

Finally, I started The Many Futures of Maddy Hart by Laura Pearson. I became an instant fangirl of this author when I read The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine last year so I was always going to read this one. My review for this one will be up next week.

We had our first meeting of our read on a theme bookclub for this year. The theme was "25" which turned out to be quite tricky, but people did a great job of coming up with ideas. Of the three books pictured, two were published in 1925 and the third was recommended as a book that everyone should read before they turn 25. My choice was to listen to the audiobook of The Truth by Terry Pratchett, which was published 25 years ago and is the 25th book in the Discworld series.

The next theme is Classics, and I have already chosen what I am going to read/listen to which will be the audiobook of Pride and Prejudice. I will be starting that later today.

Here is the January update I shared on Insta a couple of days ago. I read 13 books in January, all of them digital. Pictured are the books that I rated as 4.5 or 5 stars. I am still figuring out what else to include in the post for the update. Watch this space.

I'm watching



I ended up finishing The Road Trip, which is the TV adaptation of Beth O'Leary's book of the same name. I liked it.

I am thinking about starting the recent adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate. I haven't started yet but I do like the sound of it. Has anyone watched it?

I also watched the movie Plus One which I thought was a lot of fun. Two friends agree to be each other's plus ones for a series of weddings. Here's the trailer.

Life

We are currently in the middle of three days of extreme heat of over 39C which is over 100F so we are doing as little as possible. We usually only get a day this hot and then it will drop down a bit so three days with this kind of heat is a bit unusual. This is what my weather app said today

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: New to Me Authors in 2024
Book Review: There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
Blog Tour: The House of Echoes by Alexandra Watson

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - February Links
Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in my Kitchen in January

Six Degrees: Dangerous Liaisons to Tomorrow When the War Began


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz

This Week....

I'm reading

Last year at about this time I listened to the audio of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After having a 5 star audiobook experience last week, I really wanted something that would be really enjoyable so I have started to listen to it again. Maybe this will become something that I do regaularly at this kind of year.

I did start reading another couple of books. The first Far Across the Ocean by Suzie Hull, which I am reading for a blog tour later this week. It is partially set in Madagascar. I think it's fair to say I've never read anything even partially set there!

I also started reading One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake. I really enjoyed the first chapter, although I am concerned that maybe I am going to have to return it to the library before I can finish it.

I'm watching...

I was looking for something fun to watch over the weekend, so I ended up watching Book of Love. Whilst it wasn't the greatest movie you've ever seen, it was definitely fun rom-com. The premise is that there is a British author whose debut novel is a dismal failure, so it is very strange when it becomes a bestseller in Mexico. It turns out the interpreter has made some changes to the book and turned it into a steamy novel.

Life

Last week I went down to Geelong to see Australian author Rachael Johns speak about her latest novel Work Wives. When I was not really reading a few years ago, Rachael was one of the few authors I was still going out of my way to read.

The other thing this weekend was that we went to a music event called One Electric Day. The weather wasn't great in that it was a bit rainy. We had to keep alternating between needing a rain poncho and then having to take it off and then put on sunscreen. Temperature wise though, it was 19 celsius (66 Fahrenheit) which was actually pretty pleasant. At least not too hot to sit out in the sunshine all day.

This event usually has a lot of Australian acts. This time it was Bo'ness, Chocolate Starfish, The Screaming Jets, The Baby Animals, The Angels and Noiseworks. The final act was Suzie Quatro who is still rocking at 72 years old.

Max 

Max graduated from Basic Manners class this week. 

Posts from the last week

Weekend Cooking: Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

This Week....

I'm reading...

I didn't find much time to read at all this week. I started a couple of books but only got to read a few pages of each of them. Hopefully I can make some progress this week.

The first book I started was Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett which I am reading for March Magics. It only took a couple of pages for me to start smiling. I really should Pratchett more often. The packaging of this particular edition surprised me a little. There is no description at all. Not on inside covers or back covers. Maybe that is a sure sign that you have made it? 

The other book I started was The Codebreakers by Alli Sinclair, the story of Australian code breakers during World War II. I need to finish this as I can't extend my library loan again.

I'm watching.....

Another week of not watching a lot I'm afraid.

Life

Last week was the first time I had worked back in the office for several months. This week I ended up working two days in the office. We have just moved into a new location. It is an existing building that has been reimagined. The spaces and functionality are very impressive. Not enough to convince we mtaht I need to go in more than once a week, or at maybe twice at a stretch.

The highlight of this week was going to see Hamilton on Friday night. We were supposed to go to Sydney last year to see it, but that got cancelled. We already have tickets for May, but I thought that we would put our name into the $10 ticket lottery and we won! And the seats - front row! We will still go again in May, but I think after that I might put our names in again and see if we can get seats again. 

On Saturday night we went to see An American in Paris. Now, I am not sure if we would have enjoyed it more if we hadn't just seen Hamilton, or maybe it just wasn't the right event for us. It was nice, but we didn't love it. 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Adjectives in the Title

Weekend Cooking: Breakfast Songs

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Attention: Terry Pratchett fans and challenge participants

Have you heard about Terry Pratchett's Discworld Cup?

It is a tournament which is trying to determine what the best Discworld novel is as decided by us, the Discworld Fans. It is up to the quarter final stage now, but you can still vote!

Head on over to http://www.discworldcup.co.uk/ to cast your vote in the remaining rounds!

Props to Book Gazing who mentioned it in their post earlier in the week!

Which Discworld Character are you?

I saw this over on Kate's Book Blog, and being a long time Discworld fan, even though I don't read them very often any more, I thought that I would give it a go!

You scored as Carrot Ironfounderson. You are Captain Carrot Ironfounderson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc – Ankh-Morprok! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You’d rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders…

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com




How about you?

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

It's the night before Hogwatch. And it's too quite.

There's snow, there're robins, there're trees covered with decoration, but there's a notable lack of the big fat man who delivers the toys....

He's gone.

Susan the governess has got to find him before morning, otherwise the sun won't rise. And unfortunately her helpers are a raven with an eyeball fixation, the Death of Rats, and an oh god of hangovers.

Worse still, someone is coming down the chimney. This time he's carrying a sack instead of a scythe, but there's something regrettably familiar....

HO. HO. HO.

It's true what they say.

'You'd better watch out'

Many moons ago I read quite a few of Terry Pratchett's books, and I knew some things for sure....

I would find myself laughing out loud numerous times throughout the book, regardless of where I might be at that moment.

My favourite character is Death. I just love the way that he TALKS!

I love the fact that Pratchett takes common things and twists and turns then until you end up with something completely silly and inane and yet it makes sense.

So this book should have been great shouldn't it! I mean, it featured Death, and he was having to fill in for Santa Claus, and....and it just wasn't. So does that mean I have grown out of Pratchett? Um, I don't think so. I mean it was only 18 months or so ago that I read Going Postal and I enjoyed that.

Could it have been a silly idea to read a book with a Christmas setting in February...maybe. Maybe I was just all holiday seasoned out.

Or maybe, just maybe, this book didn't work for me.

My first stumbling block was that I really, really don't like books with no chapters. I know I have said here before that I can't put a book down unless it is a chapter break, and that it is preferable if the chapter number is either divisible by 5, or that the number of chapters remaining in the book is divisible by 5 (don't ask my why...I don't know!). When a book has no chapters it really, really bothers me!

The holiday hangover theory may have some validity though. I was disappointed for the most part. There were lots of repetition of the same jokes but there were also some clever ideas that just weren't executed.

There were some laugh out loud moments - such as the manager of a very posh restaurant creating an entire meal for a restaurant full of people out of mud and old boots after DEATH decided to give the real food to a group of beggars! And the idea that there was a god of hangovers!

It was my intention to eventually start from the beginning of the Discworld series, but I do have to say that my keenness to do so is a little deflated right now. Maybe I should just reread one of the books that I do have here to decide whether it was me or the book!

Rating 3/5

Obsession?

I am a bit of a fan of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, although I haven't read any for ages, and I really have been meaning too, but I am not sure that I would ever be as much as a fan as some others.

Click on the link to see pictures of a wedding cake that has been made based on Discworld.

What about you? Is anyone else so obsessed with a character, or a series of books that they would consider making a wedding cake for it, or some other odd tribute?