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In this thread, we choose one work of Resources: Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org - A database of over 17000 books available online. If you can suggest books from here, that'd be the best. SparkNotes - http://www.sparknotes.com/ - A very helpful Cliffnotes-esque site, but much better, in my opinion. If you happen to come in late and need to catch-up, you can get great character/chapter/plot summaries here.  For recommendations on future material, suggestions on how to improve the club, or just a general rant, feel free to PM the moderation team. Past Books of the Month [for BOTM before 2019, refer to archives] 2019: January: Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky February: BEAR by Marian Engel March: V. by Thomas Pynchon April: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout May: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman June: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann July: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach August: Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay September: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay October: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado November: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett December: Moby Dick by Herman Melville 2020: January: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair February: WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin March: The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini by Benvenuto Cellini April: The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio May: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Dame Rebecca West June: The African Queen by C. S. Forester July: The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale August: The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire, by Howard Pyle September: Strange Hotel, by Eimear McBride October:Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (怪談)("Ghost Stories"), by Lafcadio Hearn November: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) , by Matthew Hongoltz Hetling December: Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Drury Clark 2021: January: The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley February: How to Read Donald Duck by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart March: Carrier Wave by Robert Brockway April: The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brian May: You Can't Win by Jack Black June:Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson July:Can Such Things Be by Ambrose Bierce August: Swann's Way by Marcel Proust September:A Dreamer's Tales by Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany October:We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson November:Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers Current:  Hogfather by Terry Pratchett Book available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W5MIGC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 About the book 90s Cringe Rock posted:Hell yeah Hogfather owns any time but especially around Christmas. Cthulu Carl posted:I liked Hogfather, but it came at a really lovely time in my life and somehow managed to hit just the right spot to start pulling me out. quote:Hogfather is the 20th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, and a 1997 British Fantasy Award nominee.[1] It was first released in 1996 and published by Victor Gollancz. It came in 137th place in The Big Read, a BBC survey of the most loved British books of all time, making it one of fifteen books by Pratchett in the Top 200.[2] About the Author Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works.[1] He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which Pratchett wrote an average of two books a year. The final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death. Pratchett, with more than 85 million books sold worldwide in 37 languages,[2][3] was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s.[4][5] He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours.[6][7] In 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children.[8][9] He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010.[10] In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.[11] He later made a substantial public donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust,[12] filmed a television programme chronicling his experiences with the condition for the BBC, and became a patron for Alzheimer's Research UK.[13] Pratchett died on 12 March 2015, aged 66.[14] Pacing  Read as thou wilt is the whole of the law. Please post after you read! Please bookmark the thread to encourage discussion. References and Further Materials  One streaming adaptation -- there have been a few -- https://www.amazon.com/Hogfather/dp/B079VFPJJQ tsob posted:I've never actually seen "Hogfather" in it's totality, but I certainly enjoy watching clips of it on YouTube because it seems to get the cheesy but hopeful tone of most Discword stuff. Scenes like Death talking to Susan about how people need hope are great: Jedit posted:There's an audio excerpt from the new Hogfather audiobook about halfway down this article. I don't necessarily recommend that Strix listen to it, but it's definitely a good representation of the humour.   Book Barn's general Terry Pratchett thread is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2589635 Suggestions for Future Months These threads aren't just for discussing the current BOTM; If you have a suggestion for next month's book, please feel free to post it in the thread below also. Generally what we're looking for in a BotM are works that have 1) accessibility -- either easy to read or easy to download a free copy of, ideally both 2) novelty -- something a significant fraction of the forum hasn't already read 3) discussability -- intellectual merit, controversiality, insight -- a book people will be able to talk about. Final Note: Thanks, and we hope everyone enjoys the book!
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Dec 4, 2021 14:15
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I don't normally pick books for BoTM when there's already a rolling thread for the author on the forum, but Hogfather is my favorite Christmas novel, possibly my favorite Pratchett novel, and a great introduction to Pratchett overall, and Pratchett's writing is sharp enough and clear enough that pretty much anyone can enjoy him (hence the popularity). Happy Hogswatchnight, all!
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Dec 4, 2021 14:17
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I'm in, I've never read this before and my best friend has drafted me into reading it with her this xmas.
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Dec 4, 2021 15:30
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Incredible, this is the next book in my Discworld re-read anyway! I'm in.
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Dec 4, 2021 19:46
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Oh, I just finished listening to it on (the old, narrated by Nigel Planer) audiobook. It's a proper Christmas story, with Death and death and childhood nightmares.
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Dec 4, 2021 20:17
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I'm in for this, I've been reading the Discworld books in publication order and just got (sort of) caught up on them in time to read this for the holiday season. It'll be my first time through it!
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Dec 5, 2021 00:47
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I'm in. I think this is next in the ordered reading of Death books I have been doing so I can FINALLY read the copy of Night Watch I picked up some years ago...
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Dec 5, 2021 03:50
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Oh also sometimes the jokes and references in Discworld books can be a touch... uh... esoteric, especially if you're not British, ime. This website has been a big help in explaining references that I just flat out don't get: https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/ It's pretty good about not spoiling stuff from the books. If something isn't explained on that page, it usually means it's explained in the book (often shortly after I stop to check if it's a reference I don't get). That said, not getting a joke here or there has never affected my understanding or enjoyment of the books, and we all know how funny jokes are when someone has to explain them to you. I mostly find that page interesting in that it exist from when Pratchett himself used to post on Usenet, so occasionally weird references or inside jokes have explanations from the man himself.
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Dec 5, 2021 04:02
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Yes! I actually had already started my third re-read a few days ago, which is my second re-read of the year (first back in February). I didn't originally care for it so much the first time around about two years ago (the same went for a lot of the Susan/Death books in general). On second try however, this rocketed straight to one of my top favorite Discworld titles, and I decided to revisit again at a more seasonally appropriate time. MockingQuantum posted:Oh also sometimes the jokes and references in Discworld books can be a touch... uh... esoteric, especially if you're not British, ime. This website has been a big help in explaining references that I just flat out don't get: https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/ Thank you! One of the things that made my second reread so enjoyable was picking up on all the odds and ends that passed me by the first time around - which is not unusual with Discworld/Pratchett rereads, but I think I still managed to spectacularly miss out on quite a lot. Looking forward to glancing at this to pick up on previously undiscovered little jewels.
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Dec 5, 2021 13:58
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Bilirubin posted:I'm in. I think this is next in the ordered reading of Death books I have been doing so I can FINALLY read the copy of Night Watch I picked up some years ago... This is one of the few Discworld books that I think it's totally ok to read completely out of order (which is another reason it made the cut for BotM). The "Death Series" books are a lot more disconnected than the others until you hit this one. Mort, Reaper Man, and Soul Music are . . .fine. . . but this is the breakout.
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Dec 5, 2021 14:58
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MockingQuantum posted:Oh also sometimes the jokes and references in Discworld books can be a touch... uh... esoteric, especially if you're not British, ime. This website has been a big help in explaining references that I just flat out don't get: https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/ Oh good call, I should have linked that website in the first post. Here's the page of annotations specifically for Hogfather: https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/hogfather.html
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Dec 5, 2021 14:59
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Any word on when the new audiobook drops in the UK and the US?
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Dec 5, 2021 19:26
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I'm in the middle of my annual listen of the Nigel Planer audiobook. I love Death so much. The scenes where he's at Crumley's and the owner tries to get him arrested  Also Good King Wenceslas is one of my favourite carols and I love Albert having to mind the details that Death would never understand in that regard. HO HO HO
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Dec 5, 2021 19:29
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Going to attempt to read this yet again this year, as well as get my wife to watch the adaptation with me. Looking forward to folks encountering this for the first time.
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Dec 6, 2021 00:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This is one of the few Discworld books that I think it's totally ok to read completely out of order (which is another reason it made the cut for BotM). The "Death Series" books are a lot more disconnected than the others until you hit this one. Mort, Reaper Man, and Soul Music are . . .fine. . . but this is the breakout. Forgot about Soul Music. Copy acquired. I haven't been in that particular bookstore (dedicated to SFF) in years and I forget just how big it is. Was a nice excuse to pay a visit.
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Dec 8, 2021 00:23
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I'm coming at this book from a strange place. I've been re-reading certain Guards and Death books for a while now, hitting what I remember as the highlights: Guards, Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Night Watch for the guards, and Mort, Reaper Man, and Thief of Time for Death. Other than Thief of Time, I haven't read these since college, so my experience of Hogfather so far has been like hearing a story your parents used to read you once a year at Christmas, but which you haven't heard since you were nine. It feels right somehow, especially with Nigel Planer as the voice of Death: the man has his faults (and should be banned from voicing Asian characters forever), but his Death is top-notch. Early thoughts, unsorted from what my audiobook player tells me is 23% in: The Death storyline in Reaper Man is probably my favorite Terry Pratchett thing, and Death in Hogfather is (so far) way more of a gag character than he is in Reaper Man, but god he's funny. He's really earnestly trying, you know? I think in the future, when I need to explain "Lawful Neutral protagonist," I'll point to Pratchett's Death: he knows the rules better than almost anyone, and he considers them broadly worth upholding because he also knows why the rules of the cosmos are the way they are, and what the consequences of breaking or subverting them can be. But he also knows what laboring under those rules - like, say, mortality - can be like, even if it's mostly from an academic perspective, and when to use the system to correct an imbalance, and when to step outside of it entirely. Teatime - ahem, Te-ah-tim-eh - is a nightmare, and may be Pratchett's most unsettling antagonist outside of Carcer, and Carcer is a Joker expy so he barely counts. The idea of a child sitting up at night thinking about how to murder all the mythic holiday beings is both profoundly creepy and also something you can imagine an actual sociopathic child doing. I'm a bit past the point where his crew is rampaging through the tower, and starting to remember how much worse that side of the storyline gets, but vaguely enough that all I'm getting are flashes of imagery and a sense of looming dread. Finally, that Annotated Pratchett page is a godsend, and also clued me in to the fact that Terry Pratchett did... Nuclear power industry journalism??? And never wrote a book about it because he thought people wouldn't believe it. I desperately want to take a jaunt through L-Space to find the timeline where Terry Pratchett was writing about the nuclear industry circa Three Mile Island: imagine the dry, scathing, observational humor of, say, Small Gods being applied to government-run industrial systems in disarray. Kestral fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Dec 9, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 20:49
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About halfway through. I've read it a number of times previously, but probably not for a decade or more. Really enjoying it (again).
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Dec 8, 2021 21:01
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When I picked up this book, I knew it was something about how Death himself had to take the place of not-Santa, but I did not expect it to be because a band of cosmic horrors hired an assassin to murder not-Santa. This is fascinating to read with some really classic lines like "The knife was removed. Ernie stopped trying to breathe through his ears." - very Douglas Adams-y!
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Dec 8, 2021 21:13
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Kestral posted:I desperately want to take a jaunt through L-Space to find the timeline where Terry Pratchett was writing about the nuclear industry circa Three Mile Island: imagine the dry, scathing, observational humor of, say, Small Gods being applied to government-run industrial systems in disarray. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 21:52
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anilEhilated posted:You could try The Leaky Establishment by David Langford, Pratchett wrote the foreword to it and basically described it as the nuclear book he would have written in it. It's nuclear weapons research rather than power and if you don't mind the Britishness of the humor, it's absolutely hilarious. Sold, putting this on the reading list immediately. I just got to the mall Santa / Miracle on 34th Street scene, which I had completely forgotten. It's rare that books make me laugh out loud, but that part got me a couple times. Pratchett doesn't write children who are true to life, but they ring true on a certain level, don't they? Same as the rest of his characters, come to think of it. Kestral fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Dec 9, 2021 |
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Dec 9, 2021 03:13
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anilEhilated posted:You could try The Leaky Establishment by David Langford, Pratchett wrote the foreword to it and basically described it as the nuclear book he would have written in it. It's nuclear weapons research rather than power and if you don't mind the Britishness of the humor, it's absolutely hilarious. Just found and immediately bought this on Thriftbooks.
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Dec 9, 2021 03:47
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Kestral posted:Sold, putting this on the reading list immediately. Nice not-spoiler tags, but it is in the OP too so lol for anybody that cares for such things (note I do not)
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Dec 9, 2021 07:30
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Bilirubin posted:Nice not-spoiler tags, but it is in the OP too so lol for anybody that cares for such things (note I do not) Oops, that's what I get for rushing out a post during lunch. Fixed the tag.
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Dec 9, 2021 10:06
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Kestral posted:Teatime - ahem, Te-ah-tim-eh - is a nightmare, and may be Pratchett's most unsettling antagonist outside of Carcer, and Carcer is a Joker expy so he barely counts. The idea of a child sitting up at night thinking about how to murder all the mythic holiday beings is both profoundly creepy and also something you can imagine an actual sociopathic child doing. I'm a bit past the point where his crew is rampaging through the tower, and starting to remember how much worse that side of the storyline gets, but vaguely enough that all I'm getting are flashes of imagery and a sense of looming dread. He is a very unsettling antagonist. He manages to be brutal and savage but in an interesting way. quote:Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.
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Dec 9, 2021 13:56
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Finished this one, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy the ending. A nice christmas read.
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Dec 10, 2021 18:11
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Looks like the audiobook is out on Audible UK, but not anywhere else yet. Interested to see reviews of it. It looks like this one has multiple narrators, so there's a separate actress for Susan's segments. They did this before with Thief of Time, probably not by the same company, which worked okay in some places and badly in others (in particular, the actress for the Susan segments in that book had a very weak voice for the male characters, although they dubbed in Death's heavy bass for his lines, just not for anybody else).
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Dec 10, 2021 20:52
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Crossposted from the discord: only 43 pages in but its already had some memorable quotes. I'm a quite seen academical and I love this in particular, "Getting an education is a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on." Love Susan as a governess. She is giving these kids a very practical education.
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Dec 11, 2021 05:51
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Rand Brittain posted:Looks like the audiobook is out on Audible UK, but not anywhere else yet. Interested to see reviews of it. It looks like this one has multiple narrators, so there's a separate actress for Susan's segments. Oh hell yes, I thought that was coming out next year! I'm exactly halfway through the old audiobook, but I think I'll switch over to the new one and give it a try for comparison's sake. The full-cast audio of Thief of Time has a special place in my heart, for all its rough edges. Blackstone Audio also did an excellent full-cast version of Ender's Game with some of those same narrators.
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Dec 11, 2021 07:34
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Bilirubin posted:Crossposted from the discord: Yeah, this book contains my second-favorite footnote of all time quote:And they are correct. The universe clearly operates for the benefit of humanity. This can be readily seen from the convenient way the sun comes up in the morning, when people are ready to start the day." (My favorite footnote can be found here: {[ url]https://twitter.com/ticiaverveer/status/964967221440204801?s=20[/url]} Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Dec 12, 2021 |
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Dec 12, 2021 02:16
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The grotto scene was even better than I hoped
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Dec 19, 2021 00:51
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I started reading this today. I have never read a Discworld book before. This is a lot of fun and I am 3/4 through it already.
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Dec 19, 2021 04:26
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Yeah, it reads really quick. I think it took me three or four days reading for about an hour each day, and I tend to be a slow reader. Not having any chapters helped, I think; having few "clean" breaks in the narrative prompts one to keep reading, and of course stuff keeps happening to keep the reader invested. I liked the book overall, but I really would have liked to have see more of Death, more of the thieves, and less of the university faculty's wacky hijinks. The latter just takes up way too much space in the narrative without moving it forward much or having a lot of relevance to the main plot. Meaty Ore fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Dec 19, 2021 |
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Dec 19, 2021 07:27
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Ordered a bunch of books on the seventh, and it was scheduled for delivery the week after, but now it says it can't be guaranteed to get to me before christmas. Looking at the order of six books, it seems they are all ready but one: HOGFATHER. It is a christmas calamity!
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Dec 19, 2021 07:31
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Meaty Ore posted:I liked the book overall, but I really would have liked to have see more of Death, more of the thieves, and less of the university faculty's wacky hijinks. The latter just takes up way too much space in the narrative without moving it forward much or having a lot of relevance to the main plot. Agreed, for some reason Unseen University / wizards tend to be around a lot in Death novels, and they always overstay their welcome: Reaper Man is a particularly egregious example of this, where you have a Death short story that is a contender for the best thing Pratchett ever wrote, stapled to an interminable (and much longer) novella about Unseen University versus animate shopping carts. Finished Hogfather today, despite planning to linger with it until Christmas; that last section flies, doesn't it? Something that I couldn't quite figure out from the last major scene: Why didn't Susan just step outside of time to deal with Teatime? They're back in the world, her powers work here, and she clearly has enough presence of mind to plan out how to kill him. I could see the "wants to minimize the use of her powers" argument, since that was her conflict throughout the book, but by the end she seems to have come much more to terms with her dual nature (that's certainly the case in the next book in the series, Thief of Time), and she's used her powers with much less provocation even earlier in the book. Thoughts?
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Dec 20, 2021 03:33
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Meaty Ore posted:Yeah, it reads really quick. I think it took me three or four days reading for about an hour each day, and I tend to be a slow reader. Not having any chapters helped, I think; having few "clean" breaks in the narrative prompts one to keep reading, and of course stuff keeps happening to keep the reader invested. It's funny you mention this- Pratchett was on record as being against chapters because he thought of them as merely a way to say "Take a break from reading here." It looks like he was right!
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Dec 21, 2021 00:16
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I am entirely the opposite, I like the Discworld books a lot but the lack of chapters honestly kind of stresses me out. Not drastically, but enough that it took me a couple of books to really get into them. In some of the books I think it's actually contributed to me not being able to easily follow some of the plotlines, too.
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Dec 21, 2021 02:27
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Wife and I started watching the BBC adaptation tonight. it's great! (so far) The actors for the main cast are just amazingly cast
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Dec 21, 2021 02:38
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I will say that at this point in my life my reaction to Susan is "girl, you need to get over how being so loving special is a tragic handicap."
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Dec 21, 2021 03:21
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Rand Brittain posted:I will say that at this point in my life my reaction to Susan is "girl, you need to get over how being so loving special is a tragic handicap." Be fair to Susan, a whole lot of that is her parents inexplicably deciding being related to Death was Bad and aggressively normalizing her, it's trauma.
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Dec 21, 2021 16:34
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And then they died. And they knew it was coming
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Dec 23, 2021 00:37
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