Oh, I love "Men at Arms." It's only the second of the Night Watch books-- after "Guards, Guards!" and I think it's where the Watch really gels, as a group of characters.

I have yet to read any of the Watch books. I think my favorite Pratchett is Thief of Time. It's just so freaking awesome, with the plots intertwining, and the playing around with the nature of time, and it has such a lovely last line.

"Jingo" is my favorite Guards books. I love how Vetinari uses Vimes as his weapon of last resort and how Vimes realizes that Vetinari is actually on his side.

And Nobby: "He was supposed to have the body of a twenty-five-year-old, but nobody seemed to be sure where it was."

I just took "The Game" out of the Library. I haven't got very far yet but from the sleeve -- I liked the idea of a book character x-over with Kipling. . . although I can see where it might not work when actually done. Also, somehow I was surprised that it was already 1924.

I think my favorite Pratchett is Thief of Time.

Polter, really? I'm odd, in that I don't especially like most of the Susan books, even though I love anything involving Death that she's not in. Don't get me wrong-- there isn't any Pratchett I actively dislike (well, maybe Soul Music-- no, wait, the "elvish" running joke), but I vastly prefer any and all Night Watch books, and most of the standalones.

Soul Music had way too many "Well, aren't we just so clever?" moments for me. I stopped trying to parse the references. And I felt way too status quo at the end.

I'm odd, in that I don't especially like most of the Susan books, even though I love anything involving Death that she's not in.

It was my first Susan book, and I don't think I've read any since. I liked her. I haven't read the Night Watch books because I've been told it's best to read them in order, since later ones may spoil the earlier books, and the library hasn't been kind to me in that aspect yet.

Another contender for favorite would be Lords and Ladies, which was my first.

I think my least favorite Discworlds are the ones where he gets too obvious about drawing a parallel with real-world stuff-- Soul Music, Moving Pictures, that extremely odd one with the shopping mall (though I think that one introduces Reg, so I forgive it, and I also dearly love the UU wizards). He gets heavy-handed sometimes, but when he does it right you get Jingo, so I encourage him to keep trying.

A few busy days at work and I miss that Sam Waterston is mere blocks from my office!?!?!? t ::thwaps:: head on things

Where I went to kindergarten in 1974 they were teaching some then-trendy reading technique where you learned the completly logical phonetic spellings of everything (including literature translated into such so you had third graders reading shakespeare and stuff). I don't know what it did for my reading, but I'm a lousy speller to this day (as are several other people I know who were subjected to that program). I wish I could remember the name of it... my kindergarten class picture has all the funny writing on the bulletin board behind us.

In first grade I chaged schools and had Dick and Jane. I quickly grew bored with that and went for bigger and bigger books on my own.

My main source of books was the Harvest Festival. Every October the local hospital had a big fundraiser fair and at the end of the day they emptied out the book stall for a dollar a bag. This lead to very ecclectic reading habits and a still lingering tendency to be drawn to books by their color or texture or smell.

Reading in the car was a battle. My Mother had seen an article somewhere that it caused eyestrain and my books were a source of considerable consternation on any car trip longer than ten minutes. By Jr. High she'd either read something new or just given up. It was my one big rebellion.

I think my least favorite Discworlds are the ones where he gets too obvious about drawing a parallel with real-world stuff

It was interesting to read the first few Discworld books (like Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic ) and see how much better he became later on about not trying too hard with his jokes and interweaving plots, and keeping a good pace. I haven't read any of ones you're referring to, but have you read The Last Continent ? Dear God. It's just ridiculous, and he doesn't even bother to make any sense out of it, and the narrative is practically non-existent.

Oh, oh. I forgot another contender for Favorite: Hogfather. I love the ones where he actually makes you think about the way the real world works because of how he's made Discworld work.