I’d been considering taking a stab at Discworld for, oh, about five years now. What horrified me is where on earth I was supposed to begin (though of course, one begins not on earth at all, but on the Discworld). I kept reading that it didn’t matter where you started, because all the books can be understood alone, but that didn’t help me at all. It was like Netflix; there’s too much choice and I tend towards panicking and just scrolling forever. I made an effort at The Colour of Magic (officially the first novel) some years ago but I did it while moving house, which was remiss of me because the copy got lost and has never been seen again. In late 2020, I saw a thread on Twitter from Hannah Elspeth, a thread which simply bled this woman’s affection for Pratchett’s world. I felt a new inspiration take hold and I desperately wanted in, but was still innately clueless and unsure. I figure I can’t be alone in this. Sometimes, a thing is just so big that you need to help to navigate it and then it ends up on the back foot and you never do it at all. That’s not to make it sound like work, but 41 novels sounds intimidating. So I asked my own friends to point me in the right direction. My friends have done the research, and they’ve given it to me to get me going. They sent me diagrams and websites, options and opinions. They laid out their best guesses and thoughts. They got friends of friends involved. Despite the fact that I basically asked them to do free work for me, they got to it with a fervent passion and I think that says a lot about Pratchett fans. So here we are. Reading pathways for Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Let’s pass Go and collect what feels like 200 books. If you like well-plotted stories with plenty of wit and a big world, start here. If you like witches and Shakespeare, start here. If you fancy some dragon action and a snorting giggle, start here. If you like your satire biting, start here. If you liked Phantom of the Opera, start here.
