“Some writers simply possess the Gift. No matter what they bring out . . . it’s sure to be compulsively readable. That’s certainly the case with Terry Pratchett.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
Regulars of FRA will know that I’m a big fan of the Discworld novels and worship at the altar of Pterry. Why I took so long to get around to reading this is therefore a bit of a mystery.
I suspect that I just didn’t want to read his “real” stuff as I knew it would be really hard and make the ache of his loss just a little more sharp.
This of course, turned out to be true but so did the opposite. I also laughed out loud multiple times – often on the London tube which, as regular commuters will tell you, means it must be funny.
This is an eclectic collection of Pterry’s short, factual writings: newspaper articles, convention speeches, forwards etc. It contains such gems as care and feeding of authors at a book signing, how a book comes together and – of course, the frustration and anger he felt on being diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s at an early age.
This is a fascinating insight into a man with vast reserves of intelligence and humanity and I’m not ashamed to say it’s made me love him all the more.
Reviewed by:
Debbie McCarthy
Added 26th December 2018
