The library is one of my favorite places...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOKS.

Also

FOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

Yeah, while biking home from the library after volunteering I was overwhelmed by the smell of something greasy and fried. I mean, the only food place nearby was a Dunkin' Donuts. Not generally a place where you'd find french fries and othersuch foodstuffs. Maybe I was having olfactory hallucinations due to my hunger (it was 5:30, almost dinnertime). Or maybe the cars were all using biodiesel. I hear when burned it smells like fast food, and is better for the environment (though maybe not your arteries! HAHAHAHA... ha... okay that one was bad).

But books. Yeah. Terry Pratchett is this school year's official author. Last year I cleared out every single Orson Scott Card book on the shelves, not even kidding. If I brought up the library's record of every book by him, I could point at every single one and go "read it."

This year I'm working on Mr. Pratchett's very humorous works of parody, satire, and also deep life lessons and morals, with very thought-provoking insights into the way society and human nature works.

I wanna read his earlier Discworld books though! The library doesn't stock Color of Magic or Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Sourcery, nothing. The earliest one I found was Soul Music, where Death has not yet acquired small caps and his granddaughter is first (I think) introduced. Oh, and Susan Sto Helit? Coolest girl on the Disc, hands down. I've already read the other two books in which she features, Hogfather and Theif of Time. I so wanna read Mort and Reaper Man and such. But of course, the library don't have them.

Oh, and the City Watch ones, love those too. I've read... Men at Arms, Jingo, Night Watch, um... ooooh, correction on earlier statement. Apparently Men at Arms came before Soul Music, but still. Nothing before those. And Monstrous Regiment, I suppose counts too. Sorta. Thud! is sitting in my room right now, along with Soul Music-- those are the two I just got today. So yeah.

Vetinari rocks.

I've read... all 3 Tiffany Aching books currently out. Unrelated to Discworld, Only You can Save Mankind and Johnny and the Dead (apparently there's another one, Johnny and the Bomb, never found that one). Also, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents (don't eat the green wobbly bit).

Not to mention Going Postal (loved that one).

As for Rincewind and the wizards, I've read Interesting Times, and The Last Hero, which was actually the first Pratchett book I ever read. Interesting Times I have to say is the least favorite of all the ones I've read. I mean, it's still a pretty fun book but not as... interesting (HAHAHAHAHA... ha... okay, that one was even worse) as the name would imply.

Terry Pratchett has a very unique style with these books. A lot of them involve a mystery going on throughout almost on another plane where everything all comes together in the end and the clues and hints all make sense. There's plenty of humor, entertainment, and social commentary. The plots are always engaging. And you leave reading it, really, having gained something.

I mean, say any old thriller, or a horror book/movie, stuff like that, it's generally got about the moral implications of a brick. Not to say they're bad books, nothing like that. There are certainly books out there that exemplify the genre, but that's just it. Those kind of books, the purpose is generally to keep the reader engaged and entertained, to provide suspense and cliffhangers and make you want to read more. And they do it very well. I mean, Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code and that kind of stuff, sure there's more meaning than "there were lots of chases and things blew up." But still, in the end, it's about the thrill.

And then there are the books that can accomplish both purposes.

People die, things blow up, there's lots of humor, and you walk away thinking... "Hmmm..."

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I've simultaneously started on Thud! and Soul Music, both looking to be quite promising.

GO SUSAN GO!

=D