I like the first two Discworld books just fine, but with the third book, Pratchett starts to get his footing.

Equal Rites introduces one of the great Discworld recurring characters, Granny Weatherwax, who has just attended the birth of the eighth son of an eighth son, a perfect candidate to inherit a wizard’s staff. The ceremony is done and completed before the child’s father and the bequeathing wizard realize their gaffe. The son is actually a daughter.

Everyone knows girls can’t be wizards. But little Eskarina has a wizard’s staff, and there’s no taking it back.

It is not a coincidence that I’m revisiting Discworld during these troubled times. The books are a balm for the soul, funny and smart. And most importantly, they have an emotional core that makes you feel better. That makes you better as a person.

Most of my pleasure reading comes from audiobooks, but this year I’m reincorporating time for print each day, alternating between a Discworld book and a not-Discworld book. For this series re-read, I’m going chronologically by pub date.

The Light Fantastic is the second in the series. Lots of Discworld fans will apologize for the first couple of books, observing that Terry Pratchett hadn’t yet entirely got his footing. That’s not exactly wrong, but early Pratchett is still delightful. The gentle social satire he’s best known for isn’t much on display, but you still get a fun adventure fantasy with laugh-out-loud moments.

Rincewind, the wizard school dropout, is on the run with Twoflower, the tourist, because people keep trying to kill them. Rincewind only knows one spell and he’s never uttered it, so he can’t defend himself with magic, but he’s excellent at running away.

If you haven’t read Discworld yet, this book might not be the place to start. Lots of people bounce off it. But you might like it just fine. I do. I’m less concerned about which book you start with, as long as you start somewhere.

After seventeen years, I’m rereading Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and I hope you’ll consider joining me. These are books that will make you feel better. You will leave them knowing more about yourself and other people, and you will feel less pessimistic about everything.

I’m reading these in chronological order, which is why I’ve got Color of Magic up first, but that’s not where I recommend people dive in. With more than forty books in the series, there are a ton of great entry points, since few of the books depend on familiarity with prior entries. I do think the stand-alones are less intimidating, perhaps. Small Gods is my standard recommendation.

But let’s not sweat the details. If you’ve never read Pratchett and you were waiting for a sign, hello, here it is, the universe would like you to read a Discworld book.

The Color of Magic introduces us to the greatest city on the Disc, Ankh-Morpork, and its least talented wizard, Rincewind. Until I moved to a state with unjustly few characters allowed for license plates, my license plate read WIZZARD in homage to Rincewind. In some ways he is my favorite Discworld character, not because he is the best, but because I imprinted on him like a duck.

I’m not doing anything like a coherent plot summary, but that’s not the point. No other author’s death has affected me more than Pratchett’s. That’s what his books have meant to me, and so many other people, but I am afraid if I keep on in this vein I will sound like a religious fanatic.
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Occasionally I’ll be discussing these books on Sundays (the new Day of the Week for these weekly book talks), or they might come midweek if I’ve got another book to discuss on Sunday. But I will write about each one. I intend to read a bit of Pratchett each day until I have finished the series, however many months or years that takes.