(submitted on behalf of my new bookblr, 'Words, Pages, Stories') BOOK BACKSTORIES VII: THE DISCWORLD SERIES by TERRY PRATCHETT As you might have picked up on from yesterday's entry, Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite authors. With his all too early death this year, hos 41-volume 'Discworld' series of satirical Fantasy books is now finished, with the last volume being his final book, 'The Shepherd's Crown'. I'm lucky enough still to have almost half of the series in store, but if I had to pick a favourite, it would be the paperback seen in the photograph above: 'The Wee Free Men'. Now, this isn't the funniest book in the series (although there's a good deal of hilarious passages in it which beg to be read out loud), nor is it the one with the most comprehensive social commentary (although anyone with an interest in gender politics will have a field day following 9-year-old hero/witch Tiffany Aching on her adventure). But it's the first Discworld book I read, so it holds a special place in my heart. 'The Wee Free Men' is one of the few books in the series to be aimed at younger readers, so at a time when I was too young to follow the advanced plotlines and cultural allusions of the regular Discworld books, this one was perfect for me. When I read it today, I realise that it's a powerful story about subverting what society expects from you, but back then, it was simply an exciting adventure where the protagonist just so happened to be a girl. Discworld is a something I share with my dad, and something which has given us many occasions to connect. It was my mum, though, who first introduced it into our family, when she brought home a copy of 'Lords and Ladies' from a trip to Britain a few years after my birth. She didn't much care for it, but my dad fell for it immediately, and that is why I've grown up in a home with an almost-complete Discworld collection - and what inspired my to start a collection of my own when I saw the ornate new hardcover copies of the first 21 books released by Gollancz these last few years. Between us, I think the only one we need is 'Monstrous Regiment'. UP NEXT: A great work of literature in the form of a comic book.