One of my favorite authors is Terry Pratchett. He is amazingly prolific and his books seem to just keep getting better over time. Pratchett’s latest book is Making Money which is the second book featuring Moist von Lipwig, the criminal who was forced to create the postal system for Ankh-Morpork in Going Postal. All of this makes it sound difficult to approach for someone not familiar with the Discworld novels. Here are two reasons why you should read Pratchett:

• He’s one of the all-time funniest novelists</li>
• The novels are “About Something”. In addition to being hilarious, the novels take some event in history or some aspect of contemporary culture and remap them on into the context of a fantasy civilization. </li>

It may be daunting to approach a series of more than 40 books, but the good news is with Pratchett you can pick up any of the books and still enjoy it outside the context of the other books. If you want a more guided approach, there is a reading order guide (PDF version) which recommends several entry points to the series and where to go from there.