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Children's reading lists

Where to start with Terry Pratchett’s books

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Interviews

Jon Culshaw remembers Terry Pratchett: ‘I spotted this unmistakable silhouette’

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15 must-read fantasy books for 9-12-year-olds

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Reading lists

10 times fiction changed the world

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Features

11 things we learned from new Terry Pratchett doc ‘Escape to the Discworld’

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Crafts & activities

Make a Terry Pratchett-inspired banana milkshake

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7 of the best Terry Pratchett quotes

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Quizzes

Quiz: Which Discworld family do you belong in?

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‘At his best, Terry was a teacher’: Why we love Terry Pratchett

7 secret literary references in The Amazing Maurice

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7 secret literary references in The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

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Extracts

The Abominable Snow Baby by Terry Pratchett

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The easy reading hack that completely changed my day

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Books for kids who are obsessed with Disney’s Frozen

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The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

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The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett

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10 audiobooks for a listen-aloud adventure

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8 awesome books for gaming fans

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The best fantasy book series to escape into new worlds

Terry Pratchett quiz what job would you have in Dodger

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Children's quizzes

What job would you have in Dodger’s Victorian London?

6 lessons your child will learn from Terry Pratchett books

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6 lessons your child will learn from Terry Pratchett’s books

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5 ways to Be More Terry

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A beginner’s guide to Terry Pratchett’s books

Shaking Hands With Death

Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he was the author of over fifty bestselling books which have sold over 100 million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any. 
 
www.terrypratchettbooks.com

A beautiful clothbound edition of Sir Terry Pratchett’s essay on why we all deserve a life worth living and a death worth dying for 
 
With an updated Introduction by Rob Wilkins 
 
‘Most men don’t fear death. They fear those things – the knife, the shipwreck, the illness, the bomb – which precede, by microseconds if you’re lucky, and many years if you’re not, the moment of death.’ 
 
When Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in his fifties he was angry - not with death but with the disease that would take him there, and with the suffering disease can cause when we are not allowed to put an end to it. 
 
In this essay, broadcast to millions as the BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture, he argues for our right to choose – our right to a good life, and a good death too.

Tales of Beasts and Bugs

Four fantastical and funny tales of talking beasts and brave bugs! 
 
Meet the only ant to ever have left his nest! 
Find out how to escape a garden with the bravest tortoise! 
Witness a mass of sheep on the loose! 
 
With full-colour illustrations, this book is perfect for introducing young readers to the world of master storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett.

Night Watch

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

A definitive annotated edition of one of the greatest of Terry Pratchett’s multi-million-bestselling Discworld novels 
 
'A master storyteller' A.S. Byatt 
 
‘Both comic and dark, blending high fantasy, twisted storytelling and all manner of wordplay ... a fine place to start reading Pratchett’ The New York Times Book Review 
 
Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is in hot pursuit of a serial killer. The trouble is, a well-timed lightning strike has thrown both policeman and pursued into the city’s past. Now Vimes must relive the history that made him: a cruel regime, a bloody revolution, a corrupt police force, and, most unnerving of all, a keen young recruit named Sam Vimes… Night Watch, which draws on inspirations as far ranging as Victor Hugo and M*A*S*H, is a keen satire about the true nature of political power, and the sacrifices made in the name of the greater good; but also a profoundly empathetic novel about community, connection and the tenacity of the human spirit. 
 
This edition of Night Watch – written at the height of Pratchett’s imaginative powers – includes a new foreword by Rob Wilkins and an introduction and annotations by Dr David Lloyd and Dr Darryl Jones, contextualising the novel and Pratchett’s far-reaching legacy for new readers and current fans alike.

Compulsively readable. . . . Like Jonathan Swift, Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own, and like Swift he is a satirist of enormous talent. He shares with Aristophanes a sense of the comedian’s mission to teach, and with Sophocles a concern to examine the rule of law versus the rights of the individual

Night Watch can hold its own with the best of the Victorians and it beats the hell out of Bukowski. It has profound moral complexity, hard emotional impact, careful plotting, gritty political insight and, best of all, raw, urgent humanity

In Night Watch, Vimes finds himself - along with a peculiarly unpleasant criminal called Carcer - caught in a time-warp, back in his own early days as a Watchman, trying to change the course of a bloody revolution. He is also concerned to prevent his own callow self as a lance-constable from getting killed, so that he may get back to the present and his child may be born. He has become a dead hero called John Keel, who helped to organise the barricades, but was also a Watch captain at Cable Street. His opponents include the corrupt Unmentionables, who arrest and torture people… [A] master storyteller… He is, of course, writing about us

Both comic and dark, blending high fantasy, twisted storytelling and all manner of wordplay... a fine place to start reading Pratchett

The book’s rapid cinematic pace - quick cutting, multiple plot lines converging - never flags . . . [Pratchett’s] using his wit and brilliant talent for characterization to attack every kind of intolerance . . . Night Watch turns out of be an unexpectedly moving novel about sacrifice and responsibility, its final scences leaving one near tears. . . Terry Pratchett may still be pegged as a comic novelist, but as Night Watch shows, he’s a lot more

Terry Pratchett (Author) 
Terry Pratchett was the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983. In all, he was the author of over fifty bestselling books which have sold over 100 million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood for services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any. 
 
www.terrypratchettbooks.com 
 
Rob Wilkins (Foreword By) 
Rob Wilkins worked with Terry Pratchett for more than twenty years, first as his personal assistant and later as his business manager. He now manages the Pratchett literary estate and Terry's production company, Narrativia.

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is in hot pursuit of a serial killer. The trouble is, a well-timed lightning strike has thrown both policeman and pursued into the city’s past. Now Vimes must relive the history that made him: a cruel regime, a bloody revolution, a corrupt police force, and, most unnerving of all, a keen young recruit named Sam Vimes… Night Watch, which draws on inspirations as far ranging as Victor Hugo and M*A*S*H, is a keen satire about the true nature of political power, and the sacrifices made in the name of the greater good; but also a profoundly empathetic novel about community, connection and the tenacity of the human spirit. 
 
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels are among the most successful and influential fantasy titles of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This edition of Night Watch – written at the height of Pratchett’s imaginative powers – includes a new foreword by Rob Wilkins and an introduction and annotations by Dr David Lloyd and Dr Darryl Jones, contextualising the novel and Pratchett’s far-reaching legacy for new readers and current fans alike. 
 
'A master storyteller' - A.S. Byatt

Collected Short Fiction

A Blink of the Screen

A brilliant collection of short stories and short form fiction from the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett, one of the world's best-loved authors. 
 
'Clever, neatly constructed and funny … Pratchett is one of the great comic writers and storytellers of our time' Guardian 
 
A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett's long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press; to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the Discworld series. 
 
Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas, all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour. 
 
With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure. 
 
Front cover may vary.

Clever, neatly constructed and funny…Pratchett is one of the great comic writers and storytellers of our time

Tales of Wizards and Dragons

Three fantastical and funny tales of mischief, monsters and magic! 
 
Meet the most boring knight in the whole kingdom! 
Find out how to defeat an invasion of dragons! 
Witness a magical wizarding feud! 
 
With full-colour illustrations, this book is perfect for introducing young readers to the world of master storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett. 
 
‘So funny I dropped my spoon laughing!’ – King Arthur

Three fantastical and funny tales of mischief, monsters and magic! 
 
Meet the most boring knight in the whole kingdom! 
Find out how to defeat an invasion of dragons! 
Witness a magical wizarding feud! 
 
With full-colour illustrations these are the perfect introduction for young readers to the world of master storyteller Sir Terry Pratchett. 
 
‘So funny I dropped my spoon laughing!’ – King Arthur

The Lost Stories

A Stroke of the Pen

You always feel the push of the inimitable Pratchett behind them &mdash; funny, sharp, warm, wise and always so, so readable

Terry Pratchett&rsquo;s short tales from the 70s and 80s reveal a young talent bursting with invention and wit&hellip; there&rsquo;s much here to delight the open-minded, the fantasy aficionado and the Pratchett completist

Terry Pratchett’s A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories, his final collection of short stories, is an absolute joy. To hear this voice again is like settling into a hot bath – with bubbles. The stories are pre-Discworld, witty and warm

Funny, fantastical and slyly smart

A new Pratchett! Clear the bestseller decks: this book is heading for the top.

Shows the beginnings of one of the UK&rsquo;s best fantasy writers&hellip; A treat for seasoned fans and newcomers

A Stroke of the Pen shows [Pratchett] at a stage when he was stopping at the first or second tree. Soon he would plunge into the forest

The wit, wisdom and intelligence are interspersed with a lively dose of naivety, with entertaining results

This delightful collection is inventive, entertaining and a little quirky, often with a twisty end… a fun read

A treasure trove glittering with lost gems

Expect comic fantastical fragments riffing on everything from cave people to Father Christmas.

This delightful collection is inventive, entertaining and a little quirky, often with a twisty end

A collection of 20 excellent, often laugh-out-loud early works. . . . Pratchett devotees will be moved and gratified by this unexpected gift and even casual readers will be utterly charmed. There isn’t a bad story in the bunch.

These early stories show Pratchett’s remarkable ability to poke fun at the absurdity of the real world through fantasy full of irreverent wordplay, silly authority figures, and subverted endings. . . . Pratchett’s legion of fans will relish the view through this almost-overlooked window into the author’s evolution, finding much to love in these clever, funny, and tightly written tales.

A short and slightly bittersweet portrait of Pratchett as a young writer, as seen through this collection of long-lost and forgotten short stories. . . . They reflect an author in search of his craft, but there are hints of the Discworld to come. . . particularly in the standout story in the collection, ‘The Quest for the Keys’ . . . . The earliest seeds of what later became Discworld are there for readers who still miss his inimitable style.

A collection of lost stories from early in Pratchett’s career. . . . Several stories set in the fictional town of Blackbury have a genial, tall-tale feel, and the “proto-Discworld” in 'The Quest for the Keys' is a true treat

From one of the bestselling science fiction and fantasy authors and most beloved storytellers of all time comes a truly unmissable and beautifully illustrated collection of rediscovered short stories 
 
INCLUDES A NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN NEW SHORT STORY 
 
With a foreword by Neil Gaiman 
 
‘A fantastic collection of short stories… A must have for Terry Pratchett fans’ ***** Reader review 
‘Keeps you entertained right to the end. I was mesmerized throughout and could not put it down’ ***** Reader review 
‘Excellent, often laugh-out-loud early works. . . There isn’t a bad story in the bunch’ Publishers Weekly 
 
 
From the multi-million copy bestselling author of the Discworld series, discover a truly unmissable collection of lost short stories, as well as a never-before-seen, recently found new tale. 
 
Written under a pseudonym in the 1970s and 80s, these early tales hint at the worlds the legendary Sir Terry Pratchett would go on to create, containing all his trademark wit, satirical wisdom and fantastic imagination. 
 
Through these stories, you’ll meet Og the inventor, the first caveman to cultivate fire, as he discovers the highs and lows of progress; haunt the Ministry of Nuisances with the defiant evicted ghosts of Pilgarlic Towers; go on a dangerous quest through time and space with hero Kron, and discover many more adventures… 
 
Whether you're looking for a title for a seasoned Pratchett reader or someone starting from the beginning, this incredible collection is perfect for any science-fiction and fantasy fan. 
 
 
Readers love A Stroke of the Pen: 
‘A real pleasure… full of the wit, fun and acute observation that made Pratchett such a successful and well-loved author’ ***** Reader review 
‘Sir Terry did not disappoint… This book is an absolute must-read for any fans of Terry Pratchett, or for new fans-in-the-making who enjoy humorous and clever fantasy stories’ ***** Reader review 
‘The greatest writer of all’ ***** Reader review 
‘A delightful read from start to finish, perfect for longtime fans of Pratchett’s work and those wholly new to his writing’ ***** Reader review 
 
‘A treasure trove glistening with lost gems’ Financial Times 
‘Funny, sharp, warm, wise and always so, so readable' Daily Mail 
'This delightful collection is inventive, entertaining and a little quirky, often with a twisty end' Independent 
‘Shows the beginnings of one of the UK’s best fantasy writers… A treat for seasoned fans and newcomers’ Sun 
‘There’s much here to delight the open-minded, the fantasy aficionado and the Pratchett completist’ Observer 
‘These early stories show Pratchett’s remarkable ability to poke fun at the absurdity of the real world through fantasy…much to love in these clever, funny, and tightly written tales’ Booklist 
‘The earliest seeds of what later became Discworld are there for readers who still miss his inimitable style’ Library Journal

Terry Pratchett

Special Edition - Now a major film

Even wizards produce leftovers. 
 
But a wizard’s rubbish is laced with magic, and for the rats that forage this rubbish, the magic has changed them – they can speak and read, and have rather grand ambitions for a comfortable retirement. 
 
Which is perfect for a con-cat like Maurice. He has his own magical talents, and wants to get rich quick. Together with the rats, and young (rather simple) Keith, the ‘piper’, they work the towns to create their very own plague of rats - then lure them away for cash. 
 
But in the run-down town Bad Blintz, this little con goes wrong, and suddenly these educated rodents aren’t playing to the piper’s tune . . .

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

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Discover the Penguin books that shaped us

The Discworld is undoubtedly Sir Terry Pratchett's most famous creation. A universe teeming with dwarves, trolls, witches, and social and cultural issues that parallel those in our own world, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable comic delivery. This iconic series will make you laugh, then make you think.

Discworld Novels

Johnny Maxwell

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter join forces in this seminal sci-fi series. 
Long Earth is series of parallel worlds that are similar to Earth, which can be reached by using an inexpensive device called a "Stepper". The closer worlds are almost identical to our Earth but the further you get the more they differ. They all share one similarity: humans have never existed there, at least not as we know them . . .

Terry Pratchett

Books by Terry Pratchett

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Discworld Novels51 Books

Johnny Maxwell3 Books

Long Earth4 Books

The Bromeliad4 Books

Articles featuring Terry Pratchett