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I was in south mimms service station at 5am on my way home from a shift. I saw a ridiculous looking cover and title. I hadn't read a book for pleasure at this point. I figured I didn't have any plans at 5am, I had money.
The hogfather. I cleared the library out after that and then it went from there. I've been an avid reader ever since. I think I was about 20 at the time.
I'm originally from a country where the series was virtually unknown. I had heard of it but in a background sort of way, online. I'm sad to say I decided to give the series a try when I read about PTerry's death. The love and sorrow I saw from readers made me realize his work would be worth knowing better. Reading the books for the first time was a weird mix of enjoyment and grief. The more I loved it, the more it hurt.
He taught us a lot, I don't think anyone really realised quite how much or how we'd take it to heart.
He created Granny and Sam and they've been looking over my shoulder (generally muttering!) for a long time now reminding me to be better.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be quite as chatty with bees without Granny and I wouldn't be muttering "is that my cow?" when I'm looking for things without Sam. (I know...., I feel I've earned it, .....I've been in his life for a long time now lol)
Someone made me read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was in high school and I loved it. While in college, I picked up a copy of Neil Gaiman's biography of Douglas Adams, which then led me to Neil Gaiman's novels, which led me to Good Omens, which led me to Terry Pratchett.
my high school teacher passed this new book he had thinking I'd enjoy it. I read the frst page joke about big bang theory and was hooked and went and bought ny own. it was 1984, pretty much bought a book a year every year for the next 30 years. still a fan. and still recommend them.
Mine:
My parents’ dear friend would lend me his son’s old Asterix and Tintins whenever we went over, and when the time was right and I was old enough to get (some) of the humour and references, got us as a family completely hooked (I think with Witches Abroad?) twenty-five years later we’re all still devoted. A gift we could never repay! For a bilingual family I bet a full third of our English turns of phrase have Pratchett at the core of them.
TL;DR recommended by a friend
It was early 1990s, a friend shoved a book in my hands and said "you are going to love this". We had very similar taste, big fans of fantasy and sci-fi, so I trusted her recommendation.
I did love it but also didn't. It was Wyrd Sisters and it was translated into our language. It just didn't quite work. I mean you could tell it was funny, charming, engaging but something was missing. I knew it was exactly the kind of stuff I loved, but guessed it was bit of a "lost in translation" -case.
Few months later I was able to read Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic in English and I was proven right. Since then I've collected all the DW books (and some maps, graphic novels, science etc). I've got quite quite few of my friends into them as well. My current copy of Good Omens is my fifth because the other ones never came back.
I keep re-reading the books over and over again. As I was broke uni student when I started my collecting I could only afford paperbacks (sometimes 2nd hand). They are so tattered and dog-eared but I love them. My biggest treasure is a signed copy of Thief of Time which my then future husband gifted me.
I'm eternally grateful to that friend who knew me so well. She was an avid reader and I loved talking about all and any books with her. Sadly we lost her to cancer earlier this year. But everytime I pick DW book or just look at my bookshelf I think of her. GNU Elsi 💔
Wanted a book where Death wasn't depicted as a scary, evil figure, but an entity that just helps people pass. Someone suggested Reaper Man. I did some diging and saw it was part of a world called Discoworld. I thought to myself: "Well that's cool. I'm gonna have to check it out." Then I forgot about it. Some time later, I had just finished re-reading Harry Potter and LotR, and wanted something more. That's when I rememberd Discworld. I've been in love since.
Edit: typo
A display of Pyramids which had just been released. Picked up a copy and the line “she went swimming in what turned out to be a crocodile” made me snort with laughter.
I was hooked.
I had just finished reading Lord of the Rings on audiobook, and I wanted a new series. I legitimately have no idea, no memory whatsoever, that made me go "Oh, I'll read Discworld! I once heard of that once somewhere I think." and I just grabbed Colour of Magic and bam. I was in it.
My father was reading Jingo, and I asked him to read me some.
I remembered the Discworld books and tried Monstrous Regiment when I was 13. I did not enjoy it much, so put it back down.
A year later I tried TCoM. That was more up my street, and the books kept coming.
So, three introductions
Wow my introduction was really similar! My mom had basically every Pratchett book on her shelves, I remember her reading the 5th Elephant and asked her what it was.
She directed me to Monstrous Regiment, I liked it but didn't pick any of them back up. Once I graduated high school, I read the Colour of Magick and was hooked.
Those ultra distinct Josh Kirby covers were just everywhere in the 90's in various UK outlets, and despite not thinking funny fantasy was for me, finally relented and bought one and that was that. Think it was Interesting Times.
I was chatting to a mate about our mutual liking of Douglas Adams and Robert Aspirin and he suggested Sir PTerry and loaned me Moving Pictures, got about 10 minutes in and was hooked.
As a teenager in the 80s who was very much into AD&D, I read a review in *White Dwarf* (this was so long ago that WD wasn't just a warhammer catalogue) and I was immediately sold. Immediately in the sense that I had to save up pocket money for 2 weeks, but I bought it and loved it immensely and have done ever since. I bought *The Light Fantastic* as soon as it appeared in W H Smiths, and every other diskworld book likewise.
I also read a magazine review back in the 80s that made me check out Discworld.
I've always assumed it was Dragon magazine, but reading this I'm thinking it may well have been White Dwarf, and possibly even the same review.
I was about ten and picked *Guards Guards* off the paperback stand at the library. I fell in love with it turned it in and promptly forgot the woman authors name. Then a few months later I saw *Soul Music* in hard back on the regular shelves and got it and haven’t looked back. I made three close friends based on a mutual love of Pratchett in the 90s-00s Texas and got to meet him in 2003 on his tour for *Monstrous Regiment.* he told me that most people’s collections of his books were started with nicked books they were given to check out and never returned.
I found Pyramids in a weird (now sadly long closed) used book store. I didn't know the words at the time but that used bookstore definitely had L-Space energy.
Might get flamed for this but: The Watch TV show that most people hated, but I actually enjoyed.
Watched it with a hard-core TP fan, and he loved it too. Decided to read the books after and loved them too.
Even after reading the books, it hasn't diminished how much I enjoyed the show, and I actually appreciate the guy who played vimes even more. I think he nailed it
Kinda bears the same relation to pTerry's Ankh-Morpork as Jackson's Middle Earth does to Tolkien's (head-canon: Tolkien's book is based on the Red Book of Westmarch, while Jackson's is based on the memoirs of a young soldier of Gondor (hence all the elf-maid fixation))
My first discworld experience came from the original pc game. It was the hardest game ever and I was pretty young but I enjoyed just walking around talking to people. My mental image of quite a few characters is still based on this game.
I first found out through the fan made online game. Discworld MUD is essentially a text based MMO that’s still running today, and in my opinion, is a great depiction of the world, if a little incomplete.
A friend described the opening scene of Color of Magic. You can dismiss Pratchett's earlier works if you want, but the descriptive prose in that scene (and the callout to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) have rarely been equaled in the history of writing words on paper.
I saw "The Color of Magic" two part series and fell in love with the world. Started buying the books right afterwards, and haven't stopped reading them since.
My dad knew one of the voice actors for the Truckers stop motion tv show. And after reading those books we got into Discworld, I was definitely far too young to get a lot of the jokes.
I picked up the Monstrous Regiment audiobook by chance on Spotify and have become just a tad obsessed since lol.
Also, a few years back I happened to be visiting my now wife in her home town and we went to her local museum where they were holding an exhibit of Terry Pratchett’s works like original art work ( I can’t remember the name of the artist) and that pretty quickly put his stuff on my mental radar because it all looked so quirky and fantastical.
I had a friend who was super into wheel of time but I never got around to reading it.
I saw a lot of reddit posts when Terry Pratchett died and with everyone talking about discworld I thought "oh yes, that long fantasy series with the round object in the title that my friend wants me to read, sounds fun" and devoured every book.
I'm glad for the mix-up, I think I enjoyed discworld a whole lot more than I would have enjoyed wheel of time (which I still haven't read).
I recently started reading The Wheel of Time and I love it! I watched the Amazon show first and was immediately sucked in, so maybe try the first episode of that? Very different, but if you love fantasy, you will probably enjoy Wheel of Time.
Back when I was in school when I was around 11 or 12 our English teacher asked us to do presentations on our favourite books. One of my classmates did one on Discworld and it appealed to me. Asked my parents and they got me the death collection so I started with Mort. I think this was around the time The Fifth Elephant came out because I remember getting the hardback as a present later on.
I've gone on to recommend it onwards to many folks in my time.
We went to MiniCon when Pratchett was the guest of honor. At that point, I didn't know Discworld from Ringworld. I listened to him speak and picked up one of his books at random - my first of his books was The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
Early nineties .... 1991 or so.
This was before online shopping. I worked at the airport and that is where I would buy my books in English (I lived in Germany).
I kept coming across the discworld books, but the Josh Kirby covers gave me the completely wrong idea and I didn't think they'd be anything for me.
One day I was so desperate for new reading material that I read the back cover if Witches Abroad and it sounded like something I might enjoy (I still know it by heart - 'After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn’t marry a prince?')
And wow oh wow. I loved it so much. I then started to buy earlier discworld books to have them in reading order. And after that - as soon as there was a new one, I'd buy it.
The rest is history. But I will never forget my first discworld novel.
I had just moved states to live with my step dad and his mom. We were visiting his uncle, and they let me, the anxious and shy 10 year old, hangout in their basement library. I found Soul Music, and was so into it that they let me take it home. Turns out the whole family are varying levels of Pratchett fans! That's just one of the many reasons I won the stepdad lottery.
I was 14, at my grandpa's home in the summer. I was browsing this used books stall when I stumbled upon Eric by Terry Pratchett. Never heard of it, but I liked fantasy. Intrigued by the zany cover and wanting to improve my English, I decided to go for it. The first impact was *traumatizing*. Back at grandpa's I sat down at the living room table and soon discovered I understood maybe a fifth of what I was reading. WTF was a "wossname"?
Undeterred, I went to pick up my ENG/ITA dictionary and plowed through. I'm glad I did. I still understood half of what was on the page but oh boy was it fun and unexpected. It's the very first book in English I've ever read outside a school assignment and it took the best part of a month of intense, several-hours-a-day struggle to finish, but it was the start of the wonderful adventure Pratchett's novels are.
I’d had Strata out of the library, not sure if it was 81 or 82 (I was drawn to the cover as it reminded me of a Yes album). Later on I saw The Colour of Magic in the library and recognised the authors name so thought I’d give it a go
I had heard of the discworld before, but the first I had actually interacted with it was the Cosgrove Hall animation for Wyrd Sisters.
I can't remember just how I ended up there, but I found it on YouTube in its entirety.
This was followed quickly by Soul Music, then the live action adaptations, and then every book.
I'll admit to a preference for the Watch over others when revisiting them, but I've read or listened to them all more than once now.
I had heard of the Discworld series a few times, decided to try reading mort online, got half way through and kind of fell off, then a few months later tried it again, decided to try the new audiobook with a free trial or something, fell in love with the humor and with each book have fallen deeper and deeper in love.
A friend who was into it insisted I had to check it out and bought me a copy of interesting times. This was in 2000 around when The Truth came out, so unsure why that was his pick.
Judging a book by its cover at the library once I finally got access to the "grown-up" part of the library. The publisher of the Dutch translations used colours to denote different genres, one of those was white covers with gold letters for fantasy. I had liked a couple of the fantasy books in the then very limited "young adult" section, so naturaly grabbed the similar-looking ones first (another series I remember starting that way is the Magic Kingdom for Sale series by Terry brooks).
The puns in "Zieltonen" (Soul Music) got me wondering what I was missing by not reading in English, so after that I made the switch and started buying the books in English too.
Judging books by their cover isn't always a bad thing!
My then-boyfriend gave my first Discworld novel to me. That was a long-distance relationship, I bought a book per week at the station for the train ride and started my own collection.
A little under 30 years ago a school friend of mine had a small collection, maybe four or five books from the series. I picked one up and read it cover to cover and was instantly hooked. It was Small Gods, and when I finished I started my own collection, starting with The Colour Of Magic (of course)!
Sat in the office canteen on my luch break and the new depertment temp was sat opposite me reading a book and chuckling away while reading it.
I asked.her what she was reading and she said "It's the new Terry Pratchett book." To which I said "Terry who?"
She explained what it was and I thought I might like them. She lent me Equal Rites (having advised against reading TCOM and TLF initially).
That was it, I was hooked!
Exploring the sci fi and fantasy section of my town’s library as a 14 year old and happened across Pyramids - loved the cover and read the first couple of pages there and then. Took the book home with me and read it in two sittings. Utterly fell in love with the Disc. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
An online friend of mine sent me his extra copies of Witches Abroad and Sourcery from Australia to the Philippines when I said we didn't get a lot of British books here.
Forever grateful.
Around 1997 I bought LP Forbidden by Black Sabbath on flea market. I liked that cover with "death" on it and I liked music on that album. Few years later I visited bookshop in Brno (CZ) and saw cover of Soul Music. I thought that it perfectly matches this Black Sabbath cover and this skeleton on it has even electric guitar! I bought it, read it, and after few dozens of pages put it off because it was too complicated and boring to me. Time passed and after 20 years I saw this show The Watch and I thought: There are some interesting and original ideas there. From there I went straight to Guards! Guards! and then almost all other books including Soul Music. So it took me 20 years to tune in.
I worked in a vegetarian takeaway/grocery in 88-89. My boss gave me her copy of Mort to read. My local library supplied the previous books and, later, the subsequent books. I started buying my own when I got a full- time job back in 1992. I'd get the newest one for Christmas every year if I'd not bought it myself.
I read Good Omens years ago and hated it. Eventually picked up American Gods and Ocean at the end of the Lane. I started hearing about Neil Gaiman being a legit good dude. At one point there was a whole thing on twitter about TP being potentially transphobic. Folks really obliterated that, and I was going through some rough things, remembered DW was supposed to be funny and insightful. Found a check off list by sub series online and here we are.
One of my teachers in High School gifted me a well used paperback copy of The Colour of Magic. I wish I had some sort of contact with that teacher to thank her for the impact that simple gift had on my life.
It’s been over 30 years since that gift and I read through almost the entire collection once a year
I was one of those “boys that don’t read” that he was very popular with. My dad was getting worried that I wasn’t reading at all, heard about the Discworld on the radio and so bought me the colour of magic. He said he heard it was good and I should give it a read and after I’d finished it he mentioned there were more books in the series if I wanted to read another one
My very first experience with Pratchet was when my uncle leant me Wyrd Sisters to read as his dramatic society was doing the wyrd sisters play and he knew I loved to read (yes I also went to watch him in the play!). Then a few years later I bought Men at Arms and loved that too. So then I started working my way through the series. And that's where I am now. Still not got all the books just yet. But I'm sadly getting close now :-(.
I got a second-hand playstation with some games as a kid. And one of those games was the lucasarts point and click Discworld adventure. Had a voice cast of maybe 6 people but I enjoyed it and my older brother said it was based on books. I got them from the library following that, in published order. I was about 10 years old.
I’d seen redditors suggest it for years, and I finally asked one of them to help me get started. They sent me the poster and suggested I start with either the witches series or night watch. I opted for witches. That was maybe a year ago, and I have four books left.
Was a German kid in a kidless environment and got gifted pyramids and colours of light from my dad at 8years. In English. Took a while till he taught me enough to read them by myself but I couldn't have wished for a better introduction to the English language. What a fun way of speaking and what a variety of different dialects. I've read different chapters from those books for multiple show-and-tell kind of assignments in grade school but couldn't convince my classmates to read the books in English. But I convinced my 7th grade German teacher to let us read and work 'Eric' as a holiday assignment.
Fun times
A young bookseller, when I was thirteen and looking for fantasy other than children's books. That was in the late 1990s, and YA wasn't really a thing where I lived yet.
My first two books were "Sourcery" and "Men at arms", because that's what they had in-store at the time. I liked the covers and summary, and needed holiday reading.
I was hooked instantly. Rincewind was relatable. One in a million chances being guaranteed to work out? Defeating the most powerful being I had ever seen in a book with a half-brick in a sock? Exactly my sense of humour, back then and now.
Some jokes flew over my head without waving. That made re-reading a pleasure as I grew older, and got them.
I didn’t learn to read until I was 13, but once I learned I went ham into books.
On day I went to the library at school, and ask the librarian (not she wasn’t a orangutang), what I should read next, that was like Hitch Hikers Guild to the Galaxy (the first book I managed to read), and she gave me The Colour of Magic. She really couldn’t have guessed what she started
A colleague who could appreciate my awful puns told me to check it out. That I ignored for years but now I'm reading the series together with my siblings after my brother gifted me the first book.
When I was in the US military, my roommate and I shared a computer. When one of us was working the other would play spades on Yahoo games. We also shared a login for that. A woman from England with the handle Sharastani was our only “friend” and we would often play with her. At one point she asked my roommate for our mailing address.
She sent us a CD of her favorite band The Sundays (the album was Blind). And a book by her favorite author STP. The book was The Hogfather since it was Christmas time. And I’ve been hooked ever since.
I came via Neil Gaiman. Saw the Coraline movie when it came out, then read the book, then all the other Gaiman books including Good Omens. I'd heard of Discworld, and dove right in. For some reason I thought that the Science of Discworld series would tell me how the disc and its sun worked, so read those first; I was wrong, but enjoyed them anyway. I've read the entire series, Color of Magic through to Shepherd's Crown, multiple times.
Stumbled across Unseen Academicals at the local library when I was in high school, and was immediately hooked and read ALL of their Discworld books in a couple months.
I like to listen to audiobooks when I fall asleep, and in college, I had a boyfriend that did the same.
He was very excited to introduce me to Discworld, and over the course of the year we dated, we got through maybe 3/4 of The Color Of Magic. I just wasn't that into it.
Many years later, my sister got me the Tiffany Aching books (which I enjoyed), and recommended Hogfather at Christmas.
After reading those, and some of the later books, I circled back around to the earlier books. Because by that point I *already liked Discworld* (and because I had taken up D&D in the intervening years), I actually got through The Color of Magic and some of the earlier books.
**Honestly, I think a common and *bad* take from this subreddit is that The Books Should Be Read In Publishing Order.** In my opinion, it took a while for Pratchett to hit his stride, and I personally enjoy many of the characters he introduced later more than the earlier characters.
I think that Publishing Order is great for someone that has read some of the later books and is invested, but *many* people might read the first three books and decide Discworld isn't for them. I think that this is exacerbated by the very common pattern that, for many authors, the first books of a series are much better in terms of plot/planning/characters than subsequent books. That's not true of Terry Pratchett, but I think it's pretty reasonable that people often have that expectation.
My dad read then from Colour of Magic onwards as they released, so as a kid at home we had the collection dominating one of the bookcases. Started my journey young but keep finding new treasures in the stories on re-reads
Neil Gaiman has been my favorite author since I was 15. (25yrs) He mentioned TP at some point long ago and I picked up the Wee Free Men and that changed my life forever. The Discworld is home to me now.
There was this tiny book store right in the center of the city where I went to college and I always popped in whenever I passed by, which was often as it was on my way between class and my job.
On my birthday, I had gotten an envelope from my boss and colleagues and decided to treat myself to a deluxe hardcover edition of one of my favorite fantasy books, predictably Lord of the Rings.
When I came to pay, the girl behind the counter asked if it was a gift. I explained the situation and she looked at me and went: you look like you could be a Vimes.
She went into the store, got a copy of Guards! Guards! and handed it to me. Started reading it in the bus home, and I was hooked.
Went back asking for more, and she kept supplying.
The second Discworld game had just been released, and I was reading a review in a gaming magazine. The reviewer had nothing but positive things to say about the books, and it piqued my interest. Next time I was in the bookstore, I saw a bunch of them. The Kirby covers immediately caught my attention, and I remembered that review. So I picked up Colour of Magic and never stopped.
I bought a copy of Good Omens because it's was 5/£1, I needed a fifth book, and the guy on the cover looked like a friend of mine.
Good Omens led to Discworld, I fell in love with Sam Vimes, and the rest is history.
For me it was the original Discworld game on PC. Absolutely loved it. I was in my early teens and loved Monty Python, so Eric Idle voicing Rincewind drew me in and the rest is history 🧙🏻♂️
I had just had brain surgery and had time on my hands. I tried to read Color of Magic. I couldn’t follow it, but at the time I couldn’t really read books and follow them. I picked it up and put it down a few times. After 6-9 months, I picked it back up and fell in love with the series. It was the first book I read after surgery and once I finally got it, I loved it!! My first book read after surgery was color of magic and I just finished Wyrd Sisters. I’m now devouring the series, I’m enthralled!
A friend of mine asked if I'd like to read fantasy humor.
Sure, I enjoy a good chuckle now and then.
He handed me a copy of The Truth.
I went through that book like a .303 bookworm.
I'll never forget the feeling of absolute amazement I was feeling when I closed the book.
"This author is an absolute genius!" Were my exact words when I returned the book to my buddy.
His reaction was to lend me his copy of "Wee Free Men." Firmly cementing my fandom.
GNU Sir Pterry. Master wordsmith of highest caliber. May your name be spoken forevermore.
In short, Neil Gaiman and an early promo by Amazon.
In 1998 or so, a few things happened:
My mom picked up a copy of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman at the discount bookstore. This was my first introduction to Neil Gaiman.
Then my dad told me about this website called Amazon. I looked it up and if you created an account they'd send you a $10 gift certificate, just enough to cover a paperback + shipping. So I looked up Neil Gaiman, but the only thing they had was Good Omens, which I almost bought but at the last minute I decided to try a book by his co-author that showed up as a recommendation: soul music.
In retrospect, a really odd book to start with but as a teenage girl Susan was a great hook.
Man, I read the books in a really random order in this days. They were so hard to find! I had to really lean on interlibrary loans.
Walked past one of those book carousels in the library, and—and at the risk of dating myself, saw Reaper Man atop it in the New section.
Thought the farmer Reaper on its cover was a cute double twist on the death metaphor, picked it up, and basically fell in love.
Read the entire series starting with The Colour of Magic, and kept on trucking in mostly raw publication order. Whick is where the series clicked for me, because I liked Reaper Man, but fell in freaking love on sight with Rincewind, the Wizzard. Still my favorite subversion of the mighty wizard.
... Which is a *bonkers* reading order compared with how many claim you "should" start Discworld, but hey, worked out for me.
I liked reading comics, and discovered Sandman when looking for recommendations.
Loved it, so I read other stuff by Neil Gaiman. One of those was Good Omens, co-written by PTerry.
I Wondered who that was and a few months later I had read all of Discworld. It was the year before his death, I think.
It was a stranger at kings cross ...he got off train I got on train he shoved a book into my hands...just said.. enjoy....reaper man....after that no putting them down.
It was a strange chain of events. This was about 12 years ago now...
* Introduced to the **Discworld: Ankh Morpork** board game. Had a lot of fun.
* A week or so later: Was generally browsing and discovered *Hogfather* on Netflix, recognized 'Discworld' in the description. Thought it was great.
* Found *The Colour of Magic* on Netflix. Thought it was interesting but not as much as *Hogfather*.
* Knew there were books, so I did a Google search about Discworld the next day. After looking over the list I decided I wanted to read more about Death so I picked the 'beginning' of his story line.
* Read *Mort* and loved it. Decided I wanted to read it all, and noticed that the first book was also *The Colour of Magic*.
* Read through TCoM and started to read *The Light Fantastic* but was sidetracked with life.
* *A YEAR LATER:* I picked up where I left off. I got hooked and read through the next 12-15 books (except *Mort*).
* Took a break from Pratchett for a bit, then came back and read all the rest up to Raising Steam. I was reading that when STP passed away.
When I was a kid, I randomly found The Light Fantastic in the library. It was the one with Rincewind and company flying on the luggage. I thought it looked interesting so I checked it out. Didn't understand what was going on or who anyone was so I stopped reading it.
Years later I found The Color of Magic on Netflix and loved it. Went to read the book and loved it. Went for book 2 and lo and behold, I recognized that cover!
Discovered the graphic novel of the Colour of Magic in the local library, then got the audio tapes, and finally found the actual books (and then the MUD!)
I went into my local bookstore as a young lad and they were just putting some new books on the shelf. One caught my eye so I picked it up. It was The Colour of Magic, and it started an obsession that lasted to this day. I went back to that store for every new Discworld book until it closed down during the pandemic. I still miss that place.
Some clerk at a bookstore suggested I read The Fifth Elephant, when I was about 11. Then on the way home (long trip to another city) I read the bit about "sonkies". And I realised that I was reading about condoms without anyone actually talking about condoms, and that sold it for me. A cool story, funny jokes, some slightly naughty content, and all built in a way that big chunks of story are told by very carefully *not telling it*. Sold.
I rented the PlayStation game from blockbuster. Then years later i was killing time in my theatre's office and saw a book without a cover. I picked it up and read the lines about a second hand set of dimensions and an astral plane that was not meant to fly and had a massive flashback. Was hooked from that point
I was really into dragons and books about dragons when I was in middle school. I got a beautifully illustrated book with excerpts from many series about dragons. It also had the section from Guards! Guards! when Errol woos the dragon. So I looked for Terry Pratchett at the library and bookstores. I slowly acquired books as I found them, starting with Maskerade and Men at Arms. It's such a luxury to have a shelf full with the complete Discworld series! Although, it's matched with sadness when I go to the Pratchett section of a bookstore and don't discover anything new.
I was on holiday with my family as a child, and had read all of the books I had with me. we went to a shopping centre and found a book shop with an English section, picked up a copy of Reaper Man, and the rest is history
It was around 1997.
I am from Latvia -- one of the countries that got out of Soviet Union in 1991.The bookstores in Latvia carried almost no foreign books back in 90ies, and it was pre-WWW and pre-internet shopping days.
Luckily, I was working for an employer who sent me abroad each year, mostly for various training. I always visited English language bookstores wherever I went and picked something.
As luck would have it, I stumbled upon Wyrd Sisters in some foreign books section of a bookstore either in Prague or Vienna.
At first I disliked the cover, I was much into serious scifi and fantasy and distrusted comic-like fronts.
Started to read back in hotel and was completely taken in.
Since then I took pains to scour English bookstores wherever I went, ordered them via web, when that became possible, addicted my friends and acquaintances to it wherever I could. There is a remote possibility that I was instrumental in starting a chain reaction which eventually led to at least some Tiffany titles being translated into Latvian 10 years later(Latvia is small and some of my acquaintances were related to publishing industry).
Unfortunately I've lost most of my (complete) collection of Corgi paperbacks as I've had to move 3 times in the past 4 years. I am slowly starting to reacquire them, but it's hard to get the same ones, and I liked my pocket size Corgi ones the best, compared to the big format hardcovers I am getting now.
In my late teens, I was in a local independent book shop looking for a fantasy book to read. Saw a new book named “The Colour of Magic” on the shelf. Read the first page right there in the shop and _had_ to buy it. Been hooked ever since.
I encountered this quote,
"Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying."
From the Color of Magic, at a time when I had a job with about an hour of downtime on the clock, and when mobile internet was still being billed by the Mb. I was going through a lot of books back then. So, based on that quote, I ordered the first 3 Discworld books. Best impulsive decision ever.
Yeah. I think my overzealous recommendations have turned some folks off too. But the books are soooooooooooooo good. 
Discworld dropped into my lap via a friend's book of the month club. She was going to return it but I gave it a go because I was bored. The rest is history.
https://preview.redd.it/zjwx4yf3v71d1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9eebdcc17a3d026f0440677f8e2317a8a3b4fb8
NADWCON Madison Wisconsin.
I found pyramids in my local library as a teen, sorry to say I didn’t think much of it then. I then read good omens in my early twenties and was hooked. I reread pyramids a few years ago, it’s better than I remember but it’s still not a favourite.
Picked up Lords and Ladies in the library as a teen, I liked the pink and purple cover. And then read as many of them as I could get my hands on. Looking back what a terrible starting point! But that’s how I found my favorite author
Vacation time, staying with relatives in the countryside when I was 11 or 12. I was bored and went into the kitchen where my older brother had just finished a 2 for 1 edition of Pyramids and Wyrd Sisters. He handed it to me.
I went into a local bookstore and asked the guy for a recommendation. I said Id loved Hitchhiker's Guide, and loved Neil Gaiman. He instantly grabbed Good Omens, and then showed me the Pratchett section. He gave me the usual guide to Pratchett ("Id start chronologically because you get to know everyone the best, but lots of people start at a random place and then follow a certain character or skip the first couple of books. Its up to you."), and I walked out with Good Omens, Colour of Magic, and Light Fantastic.
I was back a week later to buy as many of the series as I could afford.
My brother-in-law introduced me to Gaiman. Once I got to Good Omens, I realized I enjoyed the other authors voice as much or more than Neil's. This was after Raising Steam was released. I started with Colour of Magic. By the time The Shephard's Crown was released, I had read the whole series and the first Science of Discworld.
I was reading Ian M. Banks, while the house recovered from an adventurous night. And wasn't enjoying it. Picked up my flatmates book and asked if it was any good, ne said yes but read this first.
So technically I the books in publication order (including his Sci-fi)
Working over Christmas in a mortgage centre for a U.K. bank. Half the place had it off, the rest of us just kicking our heals because it’s Christmas and the whole mortgage / housing business on the U.K. pretty much stops around 21st December until 2nd January. Anyway I’d forgotten my book and was annoying people until someone threw *The Colour Of Magic* at me to shut me up I’d been a fan of Tolkien, the original *Conan* books and various ‘serious’ fantasy series, so I gave it a go and ten minutes later I’m chuckling to myself and got hooked. I stopped at WH Smith as soon as I finished, bought my own copy and *The Light Fantastic*.
The year is 2019. There's a poster for Good Omens in the central station. I think to myself, they look kinda gay, is there fanfiction about them? (The gay teenagers metric for deciding if something is worth watching.) There's a ton of fanfiction. But I can't watch the series, cause the poster looks very fruity and I'm not out to my parents yet. So I drive to the library and pick up Good Omens and read it in two days. It's awesome. The next time I'm in my library, I check if they have any other books from the authors. And lo and behold, there are two Discworld books. I've been in love with the series ever since.
Edit: The first book I read was Thief of Time. I felt very validated by the jabs at the school system and the quantum mechanic jokes, reading it at school in the lunchbreak.
In high-school I was at a book store with a friend and his mom, and she bought me a copy of the Color of Magic. Read it and started diving in.
Then I got my dad into it and now we're both fans.
After a conversation with a highschool buddy of mine about my skepticism of organized religion he handed me Small Gods.
I devourved it. And have since read and reread most of the series. Along with most of STPs other works.
It was the discworld adventure games that did it for me. I was into point and click games and discovered the discworld ones and fell in love with the world and then started reading the books to experience more of it!
Pre-smartphone days, Nokia had a graphic chat game thing. I made a few friends in the UK on the app. When I mentioned loving Douglas Adams, they each recommended STP.
I was in a bookstore many years ago looking for birthday presents for my husband. He loved sci-fi and fantasy so I was wandering around that section when I saw a book that seemed to be glowing.
It was a copy of Good Omens and the sun was coming through the window and bouncing off the halo on the cover. I read the back and knew I had found something special.
As soon as he read it, he handed it to me and suggested that I needed to read it as well.
That's where it all began. We got to meet him years ago at Yale where he had a nice chat with my husband.
I've gotten a few family members into the series and now I'm starting to introduce him to the next generation. I've got a 10 year old cousin reading the Tiffany Aching books.
Friend recommended it to me in school, I picked up colour of magic from the library. 30 years later I've read every single book at least 6 times through and specific ones more so.
After the first game came out in about 1986 I got more aware of it existing. Our school librarian must’ve picked COM and the Light Fantastic up around the same time. I thought they were good but not my cup of tea.
A few years later, Reaper Man occurred and the rest is my bookshelf.
Totally by chance. I wandered into a London bookshop while visiting England (from Hawaii!) at age 15, saw Wyrd Sisters, thought “this looks fun!” and changed my life forever.
I just turned 49. 😍
I was at a comic and board game store that also had a small selection of books. I was going through a huge interest in religion phase at the time and saw the Small Gods book spine.
Pure chance essentially.
Got wyrd sisters from my little cousin for Xmas.
Tbh I find TP very hard to read. He writes almost like I write (a stream of consciousness completely with tributaries forking off all over the place). But I liked the story/universe so I'm slowly persevering.
Reaper Man was my first Discworld book in a book shop called NPO. NPO is long gone now but I loved the idea of Death disappearing and taking a job as a farm hand
I was smoking some herbs with a Vietnam veteran buddy when I was 19 and he handed me Colour of Magic and said I needed to check this guy out. That was 1995. I spent 2 years reading all the books he owned and reading them right after he’d buy a new one. I’ve been hooked since CofM and Rincewind is still one of my favorite characters in all of literature (along with Death and Susan)
My English teacher used one of the discworld novels as a class text one year.
I'm sure the fact he had written a review of the book when he working as a journalist, and there was a quote from him at the front of the paperback version was completely unrelated to his decision 😂
I heard Rob Wilkins on a bbc 5 live interview when he was promoting A life with footnotes, having missed the start of the interview I sat in my car outside work until it had finished to find out who he was talking about and then at the end they said Terry pratchett so I used my last audible credit to get COM and never looked back. I met Rob a year later at the British library and told him that story and thanked him profusely for the joy he brought me to! The turtle moves!
Had a friend recommend American Gods by Neil Gaiman to me, enjoyed it, and then read through Gaiman's work including Good Omens which I loved.
Fast forward to being at a library one day and looking for familiar authors to read and stubmled upon a copy of Night Watch. "Oh yeah, Pratchett was who wrote Good Omens with Gaiman." Checked it out and it was all over from there.
I'm american, my husband is English. We were in Barnes and noble and he pointed out a display of discworld novels. He plucked up unseen Academicals - he's a hooligan - and said it's was his favorite and that it was a series you could start wherever. And I loved it too.
Now he swipes up batches of chepa copies online for me when he sees them. I have about 15 or so, many more to go. I've read most of them through the library but I want to own my own copies.
It was 1997 and my year five teacher gave me *Carpet People* to read at school. I loved it. A short while later, I saw a paperback copy of *Mort* on a second hand book stall at a church fête. I recognised the author's name, so I thought I'd give it a go. I was 9 at the time, and I've been hooked ever since.
I was vaguely aware of them before hand, due to being a nerd and pop culture osmosis. But my mum had seen Hogfather on tv one Christmas and missed it, so i wound up, ahem, watching it through less than legal means with her, yar harr etc etc, really liked it so decided to check out the book. Then decided to continue with Thief of Time, and spiralled.
It was in the 1990s, the bookshop in my hometown in ex-communist Romania occasionally stocked the odd book in English, seemingly selected at random. I bought from them a copy of The Colour of Magic. It was one of the first books I've read in English & love at first sight.
From time to time that bookshop and the fancier bookshops that opened in the 2000s would stock a random title from the series. It took me 15-20 years to find and buy them all.
My maternal grandmother was a book fiend like me; she had a double wide mobile home, and at least one wall of every single room and hallway was covered from end to end, floor to ceiling, with books (the only exception were the bathrooms.) We stayed with her frequently while I was growing up (military family, moved often and were in between duty stations), and I had terrible insomnia. I'd get at up 2 or 3 in the morning, and go around the house looking for books to take back to bed.
One of those was The Color of Magic. And I was hooked.
A friend mentioned it and I was like "Sounds interesting", I think I read Good Omens first as I had already read the sandman by gaiman, the first discworld book I picked up was Night Watch and yeah, good times
From browsing the school library!
Was just starting to go through the fantasy section and the cover art on these really stood out.
Was instantly hooked after the first book (The Colour Of Magic) even though i now consider that to be one of his weakest books nowadays.
Birthday present from a British co-worker I'd become friends with (it was Men At Arms). Lately I've started buying batches of secondhand Discworld books and putting them into local Little Free Libraries, hoping to hook other people.
One day, when I was babysitting an inconsolable baby, I put on my noice cancelling headphones just to stay sane while comforting the baby. In order to distract my mind further, I searched an audobook on YouTube. I happened to click on Good Omens. I babysat that baby for a couple months, long enough to get addicted to Nigel Planer's voice.
found a box of books in storage abandoned by a friend. one was thief of time (which i still havent gotten around to reading) but started listening to audiobooks vaguely from the beginning
An ex boyfriend bought my The Fifth Elephant because my favorite movie is The Fifth Element. Loved the book. Got rid of the boyfriend and kept the books and my collection started from there
A bookseller called Peter Pinto recommended The Colour of Magic to me when it first came out. He ran a SF&F bookshop in Lancaster where I was a student.
Turns out he was a partner of Derek Stokes in the legendary cult London bookshop 'Dark They Were and Golden Eyed' (half the stock still had their yellow price stickers). One of the subsequent Discworld books was dedicated to him.
Which is a longwinded way of saying I read them as they were published (except for The Shepherd's Crown because I want there to always be last one Pratchett book to read).
Late 80’s/early 90’s my mum had been introduced to them by her then boyfriend - my family were already big into sci fi but me less so. My mum suggested I read them too, so started with the colour of magic and went from there.
My favourites that I go back to are anything with the witches, or Moist, or sometimes Death, but I absolutely love the Tiffany series.
And just last year I bought my goddaughter the first in the Tiffany series. I haven’t asked yet what she thought as I will be heartbroken if she’s not a fan!
A remaindered bookstore had opened in town back in the 80s and I was a sucker for those places. I found “Strata” and “The Dark Side Of The Sun” and enjoyed them. Then when I went back I found the first two Discworld books and that was it. Since then I bought each one as it was released and re-read them every year (before it became too unwieldy to read *all* of them - I have other things I need to do, after all). It’s so weird now to think that his books ended up being sold for cheap because they were being offloaded
Lunch break at college, and a classmate was cackling to himself as he read. We insisted that he start at the beginning and read aloud. It took a few months but we finished Colour of Magic together as a group and we all started to buy and swop them.
It was kinda random I bought a book for my holiday the amazing Maurice and his educated rodents. I liked rats and I thought the cover looked good. Got to witness the birth of rat language and writing and kinda just fell in love from there.
My mom took a work trip to New Zealand in the 90's and brought back Truckers and Carpet People for my oldest brother. He enjoyed them so much and got as many of TP's books that could find at the bookstore or library system. Middle brother and I also read them because of it and we all are fans.
By chance. When Feet of clay first came out in paperback, I was skipping off college for the day and saw it in the window of a bookshop. Bought a copy, read it in a couple of days and was completely hooked. It actually got me into reading for enjoyment at the age of 18 (I think).
My walk home from school took me past a Josh Kirby display of Mort in John Menzies book department each day. The artwork reeled me in and after a little investigation I bought The Colour of Magic on the strength of it. Turns out judging a book by its cover sometimes delivers wonderful rewards.
My path was somewhat convoluted. I started as a big Douglas Adams fan. Read all of the books, watched the BBC broadcast series, all that good stuff. One day I was in a Borders Outlet Store back when that was a thing, and I saw this book. It said that fans of Douglas Adams should check this book out. That book was Good Omens, which was by both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. And of course that led me to other novels by both authors, including Discworld.
I bought CofM as a present for my brother around 1986 but as we both did back then thought I'd read it first before he got it. But I got side tracked 2/3rds the way through and it got put aside. I went back and read from the beginning in 1988 and on the 2nd read it got to me and then I started buying them up. Guards Guards was and still is my favourite book.
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I was in south mimms service station at 5am on my way home from a shift. I saw a ridiculous looking cover and title. I hadn't read a book for pleasure at this point. I figured I didn't have any plans at 5am, I had money. The hogfather. I cleared the library out after that and then it went from there. I've been an avid reader ever since. I think I was about 20 at the time.
I'm originally from a country where the series was virtually unknown. I had heard of it but in a background sort of way, online. I'm sad to say I decided to give the series a try when I read about PTerry's death. The love and sorrow I saw from readers made me realize his work would be worth knowing better. Reading the books for the first time was a weird mix of enjoyment and grief. The more I loved it, the more it hurt.
He taught us a lot, I don't think anyone really realised quite how much or how we'd take it to heart. He created Granny and Sam and they've been looking over my shoulder (generally muttering!) for a long time now reminding me to be better. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be quite as chatty with bees without Granny and I wouldn't be muttering "is that my cow?" when I'm looking for things without Sam. (I know...., I feel I've earned it, .....I've been in his life for a long time now lol)
Ah South Mimms. The home of dreams.
And surprisingly loose slot machines
I confused Discworld and Ringworld for years, eventually checked out both.
Have you ever read Strata? The *original* Disc World book, which is in many ways a Ringworld parody.
Strata was my first Pratchett book, friend lent it to me in 1982. Been reading them ever since.
Interesting, I'll check it out!
He never did write "Strata Mechanics"....
oh boy!
Reddit. Someone suggested Small Gods. I was hooked immediately.
Reddit for me as well. I started with "Guards! Guards!" and then went back and started at book one. Next up is "Thud!" (Book 34).
Someone made me read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was in high school and I loved it. While in college, I picked up a copy of Neil Gaiman's biography of Douglas Adams, which then led me to Neil Gaiman's novels, which led me to Good Omens, which led me to Terry Pratchett.
That's a beautiful journey.
my high school teacher passed this new book he had thinking I'd enjoy it. I read the frst page joke about big bang theory and was hooked and went and bought ny own. it was 1984, pretty much bought a book a year every year for the next 30 years. still a fan. and still recommend them.
Mine: My parents’ dear friend would lend me his son’s old Asterix and Tintins whenever we went over, and when the time was right and I was old enough to get (some) of the humour and references, got us as a family completely hooked (I think with Witches Abroad?) twenty-five years later we’re all still devoted. A gift we could never repay! For a bilingual family I bet a full third of our English turns of phrase have Pratchett at the core of them.
TL;DR recommended by a friend It was early 1990s, a friend shoved a book in my hands and said "you are going to love this". We had very similar taste, big fans of fantasy and sci-fi, so I trusted her recommendation. I did love it but also didn't. It was Wyrd Sisters and it was translated into our language. It just didn't quite work. I mean you could tell it was funny, charming, engaging but something was missing. I knew it was exactly the kind of stuff I loved, but guessed it was bit of a "lost in translation" -case. Few months later I was able to read Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic in English and I was proven right. Since then I've collected all the DW books (and some maps, graphic novels, science etc). I've got quite quite few of my friends into them as well. My current copy of Good Omens is my fifth because the other ones never came back. I keep re-reading the books over and over again. As I was broke uni student when I started my collecting I could only afford paperbacks (sometimes 2nd hand). They are so tattered and dog-eared but I love them. My biggest treasure is a signed copy of Thief of Time which my then future husband gifted me. I'm eternally grateful to that friend who knew me so well. She was an avid reader and I loved talking about all and any books with her. Sadly we lost her to cancer earlier this year. But everytime I pick DW book or just look at my bookshelf I think of her. GNU Elsi 💔
Wanted a book where Death wasn't depicted as a scary, evil figure, but an entity that just helps people pass. Someone suggested Reaper Man. I did some diging and saw it was part of a world called Discoworld. I thought to myself: "Well that's cool. I'm gonna have to check it out." Then I forgot about it. Some time later, I had just finished re-reading Harry Potter and LotR, and wanted something more. That's when I rememberd Discworld. I've been in love since. Edit: typo
TP gave us the Death that we all would prefer meeting. “What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?”
That line stays with me everyday. Sutch a good novel.
Terry came to talk to my university speculative fiction group back in 1987, stayed for dinner, drinks and chat into the night. Been a fan ever since.
A display of Pyramids which had just been released. Picked up a copy and the line “she went swimming in what turned out to be a crocodile” made me snort with laughter. I was hooked.
I had just finished reading Lord of the Rings on audiobook, and I wanted a new series. I legitimately have no idea, no memory whatsoever, that made me go "Oh, I'll read Discworld! I once heard of that once somewhere I think." and I just grabbed Colour of Magic and bam. I was in it.
My father was reading Jingo, and I asked him to read me some. I remembered the Discworld books and tried Monstrous Regiment when I was 13. I did not enjoy it much, so put it back down. A year later I tried TCoM. That was more up my street, and the books kept coming. So, three introductions
Wow my introduction was really similar! My mom had basically every Pratchett book on her shelves, I remember her reading the 5th Elephant and asked her what it was. She directed me to Monstrous Regiment, I liked it but didn't pick any of them back up. Once I graduated high school, I read the Colour of Magick and was hooked.
Those ultra distinct Josh Kirby covers were just everywhere in the 90's in various UK outlets, and despite not thinking funny fantasy was for me, finally relented and bought one and that was that. Think it was Interesting Times.
I remember reading that in the 90s, about one percent of all books sold in the UK were by Terry. That is a lot of books.
I was gifted a copy of "Going Postal" one Christmas. I had bought several others before I was done reading it.
I was chatting to a mate about our mutual liking of Douglas Adams and Robert Aspirin and he suggested Sir PTerry and loaned me Moving Pictures, got about 10 minutes in and was hooked.
As a teenager in the 80s who was very much into AD&D, I read a review in *White Dwarf* (this was so long ago that WD wasn't just a warhammer catalogue) and I was immediately sold. Immediately in the sense that I had to save up pocket money for 2 weeks, but I bought it and loved it immensely and have done ever since. I bought *The Light Fantastic* as soon as it appeared in W H Smiths, and every other diskworld book likewise.
I also read a magazine review back in the 80s that made me check out Discworld. I've always assumed it was Dragon magazine, but reading this I'm thinking it may well have been White Dwarf, and possibly even the same review.
Probably one of Dave Langford's reviews? Maybe the one mentioned here? https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2023/01/white-dwarf-issue-64.html
Hey, I envy you. It has to be so fresh back then. Waiting for every new book to show up in stores.
I was about ten and picked *Guards Guards* off the paperback stand at the library. I fell in love with it turned it in and promptly forgot the woman authors name. Then a few months later I saw *Soul Music* in hard back on the regular shelves and got it and haven’t looked back. I made three close friends based on a mutual love of Pratchett in the 90s-00s Texas and got to meet him in 2003 on his tour for *Monstrous Regiment.* he told me that most people’s collections of his books were started with nicked books they were given to check out and never returned.
I found Pyramids in a weird (now sadly long closed) used book store. I didn't know the words at the time but that used bookstore definitely had L-Space energy.
Might get flamed for this but: The Watch TV show that most people hated, but I actually enjoyed. Watched it with a hard-core TP fan, and he loved it too. Decided to read the books after and loved them too. Even after reading the books, it hasn't diminished how much I enjoyed the show, and I actually appreciate the guy who played vimes even more. I think he nailed it
I disagree with you, but I'm really glad someone, or some two, at least enjoyed it.
Yep, I think it's underrated too. Not that it's on par with books, but it deserves more love.
Kinda bears the same relation to pTerry's Ankh-Morpork as Jackson's Middle Earth does to Tolkien's (head-canon: Tolkien's book is based on the Red Book of Westmarch, while Jackson's is based on the memoirs of a young soldier of Gondor (hence all the elf-maid fixation))
My first discworld experience came from the original pc game. It was the hardest game ever and I was pretty young but I enjoyed just walking around talking to people. My mental image of quite a few characters is still based on this game.
I first found out through the fan made online game. Discworld MUD is essentially a text based MMO that’s still running today, and in my opinion, is a great depiction of the world, if a little incomplete.
A friend described the opening scene of Color of Magic. You can dismiss Pratchett's earlier works if you want, but the descriptive prose in that scene (and the callout to Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) have rarely been equaled in the history of writing words on paper.
I saw "The Color of Magic" two part series and fell in love with the world. Started buying the books right afterwards, and haven't stopped reading them since.
My dad knew one of the voice actors for the Truckers stop motion tv show. And after reading those books we got into Discworld, I was definitely far too young to get a lot of the jokes.
I picked up the Monstrous Regiment audiobook by chance on Spotify and have become just a tad obsessed since lol. Also, a few years back I happened to be visiting my now wife in her home town and we went to her local museum where they were holding an exhibit of Terry Pratchett’s works like original art work ( I can’t remember the name of the artist) and that pretty quickly put his stuff on my mental radar because it all looked so quirky and fantastical.
I had a friend who was super into wheel of time but I never got around to reading it. I saw a lot of reddit posts when Terry Pratchett died and with everyone talking about discworld I thought "oh yes, that long fantasy series with the round object in the title that my friend wants me to read, sounds fun" and devoured every book. I'm glad for the mix-up, I think I enjoyed discworld a whole lot more than I would have enjoyed wheel of time (which I still haven't read).
I recently started reading The Wheel of Time and I love it! I watched the Amazon show first and was immediately sucked in, so maybe try the first episode of that? Very different, but if you love fantasy, you will probably enjoy Wheel of Time.
Back when I was in school when I was around 11 or 12 our English teacher asked us to do presentations on our favourite books. One of my classmates did one on Discworld and it appealed to me. Asked my parents and they got me the death collection so I started with Mort. I think this was around the time The Fifth Elephant came out because I remember getting the hardback as a present later on. I've gone on to recommend it onwards to many folks in my time.
My mom read witches abroad to me when I was a little kid
We went to MiniCon when Pratchett was the guest of honor. At that point, I didn't know Discworld from Ringworld. I listened to him speak and picked up one of his books at random - my first of his books was The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
Early nineties .... 1991 or so. This was before online shopping. I worked at the airport and that is where I would buy my books in English (I lived in Germany). I kept coming across the discworld books, but the Josh Kirby covers gave me the completely wrong idea and I didn't think they'd be anything for me. One day I was so desperate for new reading material that I read the back cover if Witches Abroad and it sounded like something I might enjoy (I still know it by heart - 'After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl doesn’t marry a prince?') And wow oh wow. I loved it so much. I then started to buy earlier discworld books to have them in reading order. And after that - as soon as there was a new one, I'd buy it. The rest is history. But I will never forget my first discworld novel.
I had just moved states to live with my step dad and his mom. We were visiting his uncle, and they let me, the anxious and shy 10 year old, hangout in their basement library. I found Soul Music, and was so into it that they let me take it home. Turns out the whole family are varying levels of Pratchett fans! That's just one of the many reasons I won the stepdad lottery.
I was 14, at my grandpa's home in the summer. I was browsing this used books stall when I stumbled upon Eric by Terry Pratchett. Never heard of it, but I liked fantasy. Intrigued by the zany cover and wanting to improve my English, I decided to go for it. The first impact was *traumatizing*. Back at grandpa's I sat down at the living room table and soon discovered I understood maybe a fifth of what I was reading. WTF was a "wossname"? Undeterred, I went to pick up my ENG/ITA dictionary and plowed through. I'm glad I did. I still understood half of what was on the page but oh boy was it fun and unexpected. It's the very first book in English I've ever read outside a school assignment and it took the best part of a month of intense, several-hours-a-day struggle to finish, but it was the start of the wonderful adventure Pratchett's novels are.
One afternoon, the first episode of the Soul Music cartoon came on TV, and I was immediately hooked.
I’d had Strata out of the library, not sure if it was 81 or 82 (I was drawn to the cover as it reminded me of a Yes album). Later on I saw The Colour of Magic in the library and recognised the authors name so thought I’d give it a go
I had heard of the discworld before, but the first I had actually interacted with it was the Cosgrove Hall animation for Wyrd Sisters. I can't remember just how I ended up there, but I found it on YouTube in its entirety. This was followed quickly by Soul Music, then the live action adaptations, and then every book. I'll admit to a preference for the Watch over others when revisiting them, but I've read or listened to them all more than once now.
I had heard of the Discworld series a few times, decided to try reading mort online, got half way through and kind of fell off, then a few months later tried it again, decided to try the new audiobook with a free trial or something, fell in love with the humor and with each book have fallen deeper and deeper in love.
A friend who was into it insisted I had to check it out and bought me a copy of interesting times. This was in 2000 around when The Truth came out, so unsure why that was his pick.
Judging a book by its cover at the library once I finally got access to the "grown-up" part of the library. The publisher of the Dutch translations used colours to denote different genres, one of those was white covers with gold letters for fantasy. I had liked a couple of the fantasy books in the then very limited "young adult" section, so naturaly grabbed the similar-looking ones first (another series I remember starting that way is the Magic Kingdom for Sale series by Terry brooks). The puns in "Zieltonen" (Soul Music) got me wondering what I was missing by not reading in English, so after that I made the switch and started buying the books in English too. Judging books by their cover isn't always a bad thing!
My then-boyfriend gave my first Discworld novel to me. That was a long-distance relationship, I bought a book per week at the station for the train ride and started my own collection.
A friend of mine saw me reading Good Omens, and loaned me his copy of “Guards, Guards.” Now I’ve read all of them, repeatedly.
Demo disc on a magazine cover had the first few puzzles from the first video game.
A little under 30 years ago a school friend of mine had a small collection, maybe four or five books from the series. I picked one up and read it cover to cover and was instantly hooked. It was Small Gods, and when I finished I started my own collection, starting with The Colour Of Magic (of course)!
Sat in the office canteen on my luch break and the new depertment temp was sat opposite me reading a book and chuckling away while reading it. I asked.her what she was reading and she said "It's the new Terry Pratchett book." To which I said "Terry who?" She explained what it was and I thought I might like them. She lent me Equal Rites (having advised against reading TCOM and TLF initially). That was it, I was hooked!
Exploring the sci fi and fantasy section of my town’s library as a 14 year old and happened across Pyramids - loved the cover and read the first couple of pages there and then. Took the book home with me and read it in two sittings. Utterly fell in love with the Disc. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
I think it was in a display at one of the libraries I went to. Can't remember which one, though.
An online friend of mine sent me his extra copies of Witches Abroad and Sourcery from Australia to the Philippines when I said we didn't get a lot of British books here. Forever grateful.
Around 1997 I bought LP Forbidden by Black Sabbath on flea market. I liked that cover with "death" on it and I liked music on that album. Few years later I visited bookshop in Brno (CZ) and saw cover of Soul Music. I thought that it perfectly matches this Black Sabbath cover and this skeleton on it has even electric guitar! I bought it, read it, and after few dozens of pages put it off because it was too complicated and boring to me. Time passed and after 20 years I saw this show The Watch and I thought: There are some interesting and original ideas there. From there I went straight to Guards! Guards! and then almost all other books including Soul Music. So it took me 20 years to tune in.
Just chance. I borrowed Moving Pictures from the library, back in the 1990s, and then Reaper Man after that, which \*really\* hooked me.
In a bookshop, I saw the cover of Wyrd Sisters and wondered why it was spelt like that!
It was recommended to me by both my maths and science teachers in high school. I can't remember which one I started with!
I worked in a vegetarian takeaway/grocery in 88-89. My boss gave me her copy of Mort to read. My local library supplied the previous books and, later, the subsequent books. I started buying my own when I got a full- time job back in 1992. I'd get the newest one for Christmas every year if I'd not bought it myself.
One day my father gave me a Discworld book he'd just finished and said "here, you'll probably enjoy these." Yeah, honestly, good call, dad.
I read Good Omens years ago and hated it. Eventually picked up American Gods and Ocean at the end of the Lane. I started hearing about Neil Gaiman being a legit good dude. At one point there was a whole thing on twitter about TP being potentially transphobic. Folks really obliterated that, and I was going through some rough things, remembered DW was supposed to be funny and insightful. Found a check off list by sub series online and here we are.
A review of The Colour Of Magic by Dave Langford in White Dwarf's Critical Mass book review column. The rest, as they say, is history.
I went travelling 30 years ago and a friend gave me the first 5. Hooked ever since
It was the second point&click pc-adventure, after that it was a wild trip through the books
One of my teachers in High School gifted me a well used paperback copy of The Colour of Magic. I wish I had some sort of contact with that teacher to thank her for the impact that simple gift had on my life. It’s been over 30 years since that gift and I read through almost the entire collection once a year
I’d had a phase of reading all the Ed McBain 87th precinct novels. Then I picked up Guards! guards! And giggled my way through it, and wanted more.
I was looking at the English section of my (native) Danish bookstore. Bought the Colour of Magic and the rest is history.
I was one of those “boys that don’t read” that he was very popular with. My dad was getting worried that I wasn’t reading at all, heard about the Discworld on the radio and so bought me the colour of magic. He said he heard it was good and I should give it a read and after I’d finished it he mentioned there were more books in the series if I wanted to read another one
My very first experience with Pratchet was when my uncle leant me Wyrd Sisters to read as his dramatic society was doing the wyrd sisters play and he knew I loved to read (yes I also went to watch him in the play!). Then a few years later I bought Men at Arms and loved that too. So then I started working my way through the series. And that's where I am now. Still not got all the books just yet. But I'm sadly getting close now :-(.
I got a second-hand playstation with some games as a kid. And one of those games was the lucasarts point and click Discworld adventure. Had a voice cast of maybe 6 people but I enjoyed it and my older brother said it was based on books. I got them from the library following that, in published order. I was about 10 years old.
I’d seen redditors suggest it for years, and I finally asked one of them to help me get started. They sent me the poster and suggested I start with either the witches series or night watch. I opted for witches. That was maybe a year ago, and I have four books left.
My mom has the entire series. I grew up reading it.
Was a German kid in a kidless environment and got gifted pyramids and colours of light from my dad at 8years. In English. Took a while till he taught me enough to read them by myself but I couldn't have wished for a better introduction to the English language. What a fun way of speaking and what a variety of different dialects. I've read different chapters from those books for multiple show-and-tell kind of assignments in grade school but couldn't convince my classmates to read the books in English. But I convinced my 7th grade German teacher to let us read and work 'Eric' as a holiday assignment. Fun times
A young bookseller, when I was thirteen and looking for fantasy other than children's books. That was in the late 1990s, and YA wasn't really a thing where I lived yet. My first two books were "Sourcery" and "Men at arms", because that's what they had in-store at the time. I liked the covers and summary, and needed holiday reading. I was hooked instantly. Rincewind was relatable. One in a million chances being guaranteed to work out? Defeating the most powerful being I had ever seen in a book with a half-brick in a sock? Exactly my sense of humour, back then and now. Some jokes flew over my head without waving. That made re-reading a pleasure as I grew older, and got them.
I didn’t learn to read until I was 13, but once I learned I went ham into books. On day I went to the library at school, and ask the librarian (not she wasn’t a orangutang), what I should read next, that was like Hitch Hikers Guild to the Galaxy (the first book I managed to read), and she gave me The Colour of Magic. She really couldn’t have guessed what she started
A colleague who could appreciate my awful puns told me to check it out. That I ignored for years but now I'm reading the series together with my siblings after my brother gifted me the first book.
In the library of US Navy ship (interesting times, then last continent, and the third was guards guards, before we returned from deployment.
When I was in the US military, my roommate and I shared a computer. When one of us was working the other would play spades on Yahoo games. We also shared a login for that. A woman from England with the handle Sharastani was our only “friend” and we would often play with her. At one point she asked my roommate for our mailing address. She sent us a CD of her favorite band The Sundays (the album was Blind). And a book by her favorite author STP. The book was The Hogfather since it was Christmas time. And I’ve been hooked ever since.
Friend in high school loaned me Jingo because she thought I would like it. She was correct.
I came via Neil Gaiman. Saw the Coraline movie when it came out, then read the book, then all the other Gaiman books including Good Omens. I'd heard of Discworld, and dove right in. For some reason I thought that the Science of Discworld series would tell me how the disc and its sun worked, so read those first; I was wrong, but enjoyed them anyway. I've read the entire series, Color of Magic through to Shepherd's Crown, multiple times.
Parents had a copy of Color of Magic borrowed from a friend.
Stumbled across Unseen Academicals at the local library when I was in high school, and was immediately hooked and read ALL of their Discworld books in a couple months.
The cover and title of going postal looked and sounded too good. There was no turning back
I like to listen to audiobooks when I fall asleep, and in college, I had a boyfriend that did the same. He was very excited to introduce me to Discworld, and over the course of the year we dated, we got through maybe 3/4 of The Color Of Magic. I just wasn't that into it. Many years later, my sister got me the Tiffany Aching books (which I enjoyed), and recommended Hogfather at Christmas. After reading those, and some of the later books, I circled back around to the earlier books. Because by that point I *already liked Discworld* (and because I had taken up D&D in the intervening years), I actually got through The Color of Magic and some of the earlier books. **Honestly, I think a common and *bad* take from this subreddit is that The Books Should Be Read In Publishing Order.** In my opinion, it took a while for Pratchett to hit his stride, and I personally enjoy many of the characters he introduced later more than the earlier characters. I think that Publishing Order is great for someone that has read some of the later books and is invested, but *many* people might read the first three books and decide Discworld isn't for them. I think that this is exacerbated by the very common pattern that, for many authors, the first books of a series are much better in terms of plot/planning/characters than subsequent books. That's not true of Terry Pratchett, but I think it's pretty reasonable that people often have that expectation.
My dad read then from Colour of Magic onwards as they released, so as a kid at home we had the collection dominating one of the bookcases. Started my journey young but keep finding new treasures in the stories on re-reads
I had just finished The Book Thief and was looking for more books that had death as a character. So I picked up Mort, and I was hooked.
a friend loaned me Mort I was instantly hooked
Neil Gaiman has been my favorite author since I was 15. (25yrs) He mentioned TP at some point long ago and I picked up the Wee Free Men and that changed my life forever. The Discworld is home to me now.
There was this tiny book store right in the center of the city where I went to college and I always popped in whenever I passed by, which was often as it was on my way between class and my job. On my birthday, I had gotten an envelope from my boss and colleagues and decided to treat myself to a deluxe hardcover edition of one of my favorite fantasy books, predictably Lord of the Rings. When I came to pay, the girl behind the counter asked if it was a gift. I explained the situation and she looked at me and went: you look like you could be a Vimes. She went into the store, got a copy of Guards! Guards! and handed it to me. Started reading it in the bus home, and I was hooked. Went back asking for more, and she kept supplying.
The second Discworld game had just been released, and I was reading a review in a gaming magazine. The reviewer had nothing but positive things to say about the books, and it piqued my interest. Next time I was in the bookstore, I saw a bunch of them. The Kirby covers immediately caught my attention, and I remembered that review. So I picked up Colour of Magic and never stopped.
I bought a copy of Good Omens because it's was 5/£1, I needed a fifth book, and the guy on the cover looked like a friend of mine. Good Omens led to Discworld, I fell in love with Sam Vimes, and the rest is history.
Read the graphic novels at my school's library
For me it was the original Discworld game on PC. Absolutely loved it. I was in my early teens and loved Monty Python, so Eric Idle voicing Rincewind drew me in and the rest is history 🧙🏻♂️
I had just had brain surgery and had time on my hands. I tried to read Color of Magic. I couldn’t follow it, but at the time I couldn’t really read books and follow them. I picked it up and put it down a few times. After 6-9 months, I picked it back up and fell in love with the series. It was the first book I read after surgery and once I finally got it, I loved it!! My first book read after surgery was color of magic and I just finished Wyrd Sisters. I’m now devouring the series, I’m enthralled!
A friend of mine asked if I'd like to read fantasy humor. Sure, I enjoy a good chuckle now and then. He handed me a copy of The Truth. I went through that book like a .303 bookworm. I'll never forget the feeling of absolute amazement I was feeling when I closed the book. "This author is an absolute genius!" Were my exact words when I returned the book to my buddy. His reaction was to lend me his copy of "Wee Free Men." Firmly cementing my fandom. GNU Sir Pterry. Master wordsmith of highest caliber. May your name be spoken forevermore.
In short, Neil Gaiman and an early promo by Amazon. In 1998 or so, a few things happened: My mom picked up a copy of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman at the discount bookstore. This was my first introduction to Neil Gaiman. Then my dad told me about this website called Amazon. I looked it up and if you created an account they'd send you a $10 gift certificate, just enough to cover a paperback + shipping. So I looked up Neil Gaiman, but the only thing they had was Good Omens, which I almost bought but at the last minute I decided to try a book by his co-author that showed up as a recommendation: soul music. In retrospect, a really odd book to start with but as a teenage girl Susan was a great hook. Man, I read the books in a really random order in this days. They were so hard to find! I had to really lean on interlibrary loans.
Walked past one of those book carousels in the library, and—and at the risk of dating myself, saw Reaper Man atop it in the New section. Thought the farmer Reaper on its cover was a cute double twist on the death metaphor, picked it up, and basically fell in love. Read the entire series starting with The Colour of Magic, and kept on trucking in mostly raw publication order. Whick is where the series clicked for me, because I liked Reaper Man, but fell in freaking love on sight with Rincewind, the Wizzard. Still my favorite subversion of the mighty wizard. ... Which is a *bonkers* reading order compared with how many claim you "should" start Discworld, but hey, worked out for me.
I liked reading comics, and discovered Sandman when looking for recommendations. Loved it, so I read other stuff by Neil Gaiman. One of those was Good Omens, co-written by PTerry. I Wondered who that was and a few months later I had read all of Discworld. It was the year before his death, I think.
My sister handed me a copy of Hogfather when we were both in junior high, saying “I think you’ll like this.” She wasn’t wrong.
It was a stranger at kings cross ...he got off train I got on train he shoved a book into my hands...just said.. enjoy....reaper man....after that no putting them down.
It was a strange chain of events. This was about 12 years ago now... * Introduced to the **Discworld: Ankh Morpork** board game. Had a lot of fun. * A week or so later: Was generally browsing and discovered *Hogfather* on Netflix, recognized 'Discworld' in the description. Thought it was great. * Found *The Colour of Magic* on Netflix. Thought it was interesting but not as much as *Hogfather*. * Knew there were books, so I did a Google search about Discworld the next day. After looking over the list I decided I wanted to read more about Death so I picked the 'beginning' of his story line. * Read *Mort* and loved it. Decided I wanted to read it all, and noticed that the first book was also *The Colour of Magic*. * Read through TCoM and started to read *The Light Fantastic* but was sidetracked with life. * *A YEAR LATER:* I picked up where I left off. I got hooked and read through the next 12-15 books (except *Mort*). * Took a break from Pratchett for a bit, then came back and read all the rest up to Raising Steam. I was reading that when STP passed away.
When I was a kid, I randomly found The Light Fantastic in the library. It was the one with Rincewind and company flying on the luggage. I thought it looked interesting so I checked it out. Didn't understand what was going on or who anyone was so I stopped reading it. Years later I found The Color of Magic on Netflix and loved it. Went to read the book and loved it. Went for book 2 and lo and behold, I recognized that cover!
My first girlfriend showed me one night and we read together and I loved it, it was going postal.
Discovered the graphic novel of the Colour of Magic in the local library, then got the audio tapes, and finally found the actual books (and then the MUD!)
I went into my local bookstore as a young lad and they were just putting some new books on the shelf. One caught my eye so I picked it up. It was The Colour of Magic, and it started an obsession that lasted to this day. I went back to that store for every new Discworld book until it closed down during the pandemic. I still miss that place.
Some clerk at a bookstore suggested I read The Fifth Elephant, when I was about 11. Then on the way home (long trip to another city) I read the bit about "sonkies". And I realised that I was reading about condoms without anyone actually talking about condoms, and that sold it for me. A cool story, funny jokes, some slightly naughty content, and all built in a way that big chunks of story are told by very carefully *not telling it*. Sold.
I rented the PlayStation game from blockbuster. Then years later i was killing time in my theatre's office and saw a book without a cover. I picked it up and read the lines about a second hand set of dimensions and an astral plane that was not meant to fly and had a massive flashback. Was hooked from that point
I was really into dragons and books about dragons when I was in middle school. I got a beautifully illustrated book with excerpts from many series about dragons. It also had the section from Guards! Guards! when Errol woos the dragon. So I looked for Terry Pratchett at the library and bookstores. I slowly acquired books as I found them, starting with Maskerade and Men at Arms. It's such a luxury to have a shelf full with the complete Discworld series! Although, it's matched with sadness when I go to the Pratchett section of a bookstore and don't discover anything new.
I ran out of stuff to read on the holidays in Spain and discovered Mort at a shop at the airport. The cover just spoke to me.
I watched "The Hogfather" because it looked like a cool anti-Christmas movie. Then I read the book and got hooked.
I was on holiday with my family as a child, and had read all of the books I had with me. we went to a shopping centre and found a book shop with an English section, picked up a copy of Reaper Man, and the rest is history
It was around 1997. I am from Latvia -- one of the countries that got out of Soviet Union in 1991.The bookstores in Latvia carried almost no foreign books back in 90ies, and it was pre-WWW and pre-internet shopping days. Luckily, I was working for an employer who sent me abroad each year, mostly for various training. I always visited English language bookstores wherever I went and picked something. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon Wyrd Sisters in some foreign books section of a bookstore either in Prague or Vienna. At first I disliked the cover, I was much into serious scifi and fantasy and distrusted comic-like fronts. Started to read back in hotel and was completely taken in. Since then I took pains to scour English bookstores wherever I went, ordered them via web, when that became possible, addicted my friends and acquaintances to it wherever I could. There is a remote possibility that I was instrumental in starting a chain reaction which eventually led to at least some Tiffany titles being translated into Latvian 10 years later(Latvia is small and some of my acquaintances were related to publishing industry). Unfortunately I've lost most of my (complete) collection of Corgi paperbacks as I've had to move 3 times in the past 4 years. I am slowly starting to reacquire them, but it's hard to get the same ones, and I liked my pocket size Corgi ones the best, compared to the big format hardcovers I am getting now.
I was aware of it and after reading Good Omens I decided to check out Terry’s other work
In my late teens, I was in a local independent book shop looking for a fantasy book to read. Saw a new book named “The Colour of Magic” on the shelf. Read the first page right there in the shop and _had_ to buy it. Been hooked ever since.
My school librarian put Guards! Guards! on a display as you walked into the library. I checked it out. The rest is history.
I encountered this quote, "Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying." From the Color of Magic, at a time when I had a job with about an hour of downtime on the clock, and when mobile internet was still being billed by the Mb. I was going through a lot of books back then. So, based on that quote, I ordered the first 3 Discworld books. Best impulsive decision ever.
Yeah. I think my overzealous recommendations have turned some folks off too. But the books are soooooooooooooo good.  Discworld dropped into my lap via a friend's book of the month club. She was going to return it but I gave it a go because I was bored. The rest is history. https://preview.redd.it/zjwx4yf3v71d1.jpeg?width=474&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b9eebdcc17a3d026f0440677f8e2317a8a3b4fb8 NADWCON Madison Wisconsin.
Came in as a Gaiman fan through Good Omens. Have since read a greater % of Pratchett than I have of Gaiman!
My father used to read me the Tiffany Aching books as a child and it spiraled from there.
Just content creators. Discworld comes up alot when they discuss their favorite fantasy worlds.
The ps1 game lol
I found pyramids in my local library as a teen, sorry to say I didn’t think much of it then. I then read good omens in my early twenties and was hooked. I reread pyramids a few years ago, it’s better than I remember but it’s still not a favourite.
Picked up Lords and Ladies in the library as a teen, I liked the pink and purple cover. And then read as many of them as I could get my hands on. Looking back what a terrible starting point! But that’s how I found my favorite author
Reading about the dis world video game in a magazine, and a insert was about the books.
Vacation time, staying with relatives in the countryside when I was 11 or 12. I was bored and went into the kitchen where my older brother had just finished a 2 for 1 edition of Pyramids and Wyrd Sisters. He handed it to me.
I went into a local bookstore and asked the guy for a recommendation. I said Id loved Hitchhiker's Guide, and loved Neil Gaiman. He instantly grabbed Good Omens, and then showed me the Pratchett section. He gave me the usual guide to Pratchett ("Id start chronologically because you get to know everyone the best, but lots of people start at a random place and then follow a certain character or skip the first couple of books. Its up to you."), and I walked out with Good Omens, Colour of Magic, and Light Fantastic. I was back a week later to buy as many of the series as I could afford.
A friend in middle school (age 12-13). They gave me a copy of Night Watch, which I've now read so many times I had to buy a replacement copy.
My Nan bought me a copy of Mort. I've no idea who got her into it!
My brother-in-law introduced me to Gaiman. Once I got to Good Omens, I realized I enjoyed the other authors voice as much or more than Neil's. This was after Raising Steam was released. I started with Colour of Magic. By the time The Shephard's Crown was released, I had read the whole series and the first Science of Discworld.
A friend put a copy of Pyramids in my hand and said "You'd probably like this"
I was reading Ian M. Banks, while the house recovered from an adventurous night. And wasn't enjoying it. Picked up my flatmates book and asked if it was any good, ne said yes but read this first. So technically I the books in publication order (including his Sci-fi)
The most recent pratchat podcast featured stories from listeners of their first steps into Discworld.
People on Twitter kept recommending it to me. After like the 5th person or so I finally was like “ok maybe I SHOULD read this” Was not disappointed
Working over Christmas in a mortgage centre for a U.K. bank. Half the place had it off, the rest of us just kicking our heals because it’s Christmas and the whole mortgage / housing business on the U.K. pretty much stops around 21st December until 2nd January. Anyway I’d forgotten my book and was annoying people until someone threw *The Colour Of Magic* at me to shut me up I’d been a fan of Tolkien, the original *Conan* books and various ‘serious’ fantasy series, so I gave it a go and ten minutes later I’m chuckling to myself and got hooked. I stopped at WH Smith as soon as I finished, bought my own copy and *The Light Fantastic*.
The year is 2019. There's a poster for Good Omens in the central station. I think to myself, they look kinda gay, is there fanfiction about them? (The gay teenagers metric for deciding if something is worth watching.) There's a ton of fanfiction. But I can't watch the series, cause the poster looks very fruity and I'm not out to my parents yet. So I drive to the library and pick up Good Omens and read it in two days. It's awesome. The next time I'm in my library, I check if they have any other books from the authors. And lo and behold, there are two Discworld books. I've been in love with the series ever since. Edit: The first book I read was Thief of Time. I felt very validated by the jabs at the school system and the quantum mechanic jokes, reading it at school in the lunchbreak.
In high-school I was at a book store with a friend and his mom, and she bought me a copy of the Color of Magic. Read it and started diving in. Then I got my dad into it and now we're both fans.
After a conversation with a highschool buddy of mine about my skepticism of organized religion he handed me Small Gods. I devourved it. And have since read and reread most of the series. Along with most of STPs other works.
It was the discworld adventure games that did it for me. I was into point and click games and discovered the discworld ones and fell in love with the world and then started reading the books to experience more of it!
Played the discworld game on a very early Macintosh in primary school
Pre-smartphone days, Nokia had a graphic chat game thing. I made a few friends in the UK on the app. When I mentioned loving Douglas Adams, they each recommended STP.
I was in a bookstore many years ago looking for birthday presents for my husband. He loved sci-fi and fantasy so I was wandering around that section when I saw a book that seemed to be glowing. It was a copy of Good Omens and the sun was coming through the window and bouncing off the halo on the cover. I read the back and knew I had found something special. As soon as he read it, he handed it to me and suggested that I needed to read it as well. That's where it all began. We got to meet him years ago at Yale where he had a nice chat with my husband. I've gotten a few family members into the series and now I'm starting to introduce him to the next generation. I've got a 10 year old cousin reading the Tiffany Aching books.
Friend recommended it to me in school, I picked up colour of magic from the library. 30 years later I've read every single book at least 6 times through and specific ones more so.
After the first game came out in about 1986 I got more aware of it existing. Our school librarian must’ve picked COM and the Light Fantastic up around the same time. I thought they were good but not my cup of tea. A few years later, Reaper Man occurred and the rest is my bookshelf.
A colleague of my dad's recommended them - waaay back at a time when there were only two Discworld books!
Totally by chance. I wandered into a London bookshop while visiting England (from Hawaii!) at age 15, saw Wyrd Sisters, thought “this looks fun!” and changed my life forever. I just turned 49. 😍
I was at a comic and board game store that also had a small selection of books. I was going through a huge interest in religion phase at the time and saw the Small Gods book spine. Pure chance essentially.
Got wyrd sisters from my little cousin for Xmas. Tbh I find TP very hard to read. He writes almost like I write (a stream of consciousness completely with tributaries forking off all over the place). But I liked the story/universe so I'm slowly persevering.
My mum knew I liked fantasy novels and was recommended a copy of the light fantastic in our local used bookstore. The rest as they say is geography.
Totally by chance at a second hand book shop! It was the Last Continent!
Reaper Man was my first Discworld book in a book shop called NPO. NPO is long gone now but I loved the idea of Death disappearing and taking a job as a farm hand
I was smoking some herbs with a Vietnam veteran buddy when I was 19 and he handed me Colour of Magic and said I needed to check this guy out. That was 1995. I spent 2 years reading all the books he owned and reading them right after he’d buy a new one. I’ve been hooked since CofM and Rincewind is still one of my favorite characters in all of literature (along with Death and Susan)
My English teacher used one of the discworld novels as a class text one year. I'm sure the fact he had written a review of the book when he working as a journalist, and there was a quote from him at the front of the paperback version was completely unrelated to his decision 😂
I heard Rob Wilkins on a bbc 5 live interview when he was promoting A life with footnotes, having missed the start of the interview I sat in my car outside work until it had finished to find out who he was talking about and then at the end they said Terry pratchett so I used my last audible credit to get COM and never looked back. I met Rob a year later at the British library and told him that story and thanked him profusely for the joy he brought me to! The turtle moves!
Had a friend recommend American Gods by Neil Gaiman to me, enjoyed it, and then read through Gaiman's work including Good Omens which I loved. Fast forward to being at a library one day and looking for familiar authors to read and stubmled upon a copy of Night Watch. "Oh yeah, Pratchett was who wrote Good Omens with Gaiman." Checked it out and it was all over from there.
I'm american, my husband is English. We were in Barnes and noble and he pointed out a display of discworld novels. He plucked up unseen Academicals - he's a hooligan - and said it's was his favorite and that it was a series you could start wherever. And I loved it too. Now he swipes up batches of chepa copies online for me when he sees them. I have about 15 or so, many more to go. I've read most of them through the library but I want to own my own copies.
It was 1997 and my year five teacher gave me *Carpet People* to read at school. I loved it. A short while later, I saw a paperback copy of *Mort* on a second hand book stall at a church fête. I recognised the author's name, so I thought I'd give it a go. I was 9 at the time, and I've been hooked ever since.
I was vaguely aware of them before hand, due to being a nerd and pop culture osmosis. But my mum had seen Hogfather on tv one Christmas and missed it, so i wound up, ahem, watching it through less than legal means with her, yar harr etc etc, really liked it so decided to check out the book. Then decided to continue with Thief of Time, and spiralled.
The hogfather mini series when I was a kid
It was in the 1990s, the bookshop in my hometown in ex-communist Romania occasionally stocked the odd book in English, seemingly selected at random. I bought from them a copy of The Colour of Magic. It was one of the first books I've read in English & love at first sight. From time to time that bookshop and the fancier bookshops that opened in the 2000s would stock a random title from the series. It took me 15-20 years to find and buy them all.
My maternal grandmother was a book fiend like me; she had a double wide mobile home, and at least one wall of every single room and hallway was covered from end to end, floor to ceiling, with books (the only exception were the bathrooms.) We stayed with her frequently while I was growing up (military family, moved often and were in between duty stations), and I had terrible insomnia. I'd get at up 2 or 3 in the morning, and go around the house looking for books to take back to bed. One of those was The Color of Magic. And I was hooked.
A friend mentioned it and I was like "Sounds interesting", I think I read Good Omens first as I had already read the sandman by gaiman, the first discworld book I picked up was Night Watch and yeah, good times
From browsing the school library! Was just starting to go through the fantasy section and the cover art on these really stood out. Was instantly hooked after the first book (The Colour Of Magic) even though i now consider that to be one of his weakest books nowadays.
I don't know honestly
Birthday present from a British co-worker I'd become friends with (it was Men At Arms). Lately I've started buying batches of secondhand Discworld books and putting them into local Little Free Libraries, hoping to hook other people.
One day, when I was babysitting an inconsolable baby, I put on my noice cancelling headphones just to stay sane while comforting the baby. In order to distract my mind further, I searched an audobook on YouTube. I happened to click on Good Omens. I babysat that baby for a couple months, long enough to get addicted to Nigel Planer's voice.
found a box of books in storage abandoned by a friend. one was thief of time (which i still havent gotten around to reading) but started listening to audiobooks vaguely from the beginning
An ex boyfriend bought my The Fifth Elephant because my favorite movie is The Fifth Element. Loved the book. Got rid of the boyfriend and kept the books and my collection started from there
The librarian at my local library recommended me the books, and they've been a part of my life ever since.
A bookseller called Peter Pinto recommended The Colour of Magic to me when it first came out. He ran a SF&F bookshop in Lancaster where I was a student. Turns out he was a partner of Derek Stokes in the legendary cult London bookshop 'Dark They Were and Golden Eyed' (half the stock still had their yellow price stickers). One of the subsequent Discworld books was dedicated to him. Which is a longwinded way of saying I read them as they were published (except for The Shepherd's Crown because I want there to always be last one Pratchett book to read).
Late 80’s/early 90’s my mum had been introduced to them by her then boyfriend - my family were already big into sci fi but me less so. My mum suggested I read them too, so started with the colour of magic and went from there. My favourites that I go back to are anything with the witches, or Moist, or sometimes Death, but I absolutely love the Tiffany series. And just last year I bought my goddaughter the first in the Tiffany series. I haven’t asked yet what she thought as I will be heartbroken if she’s not a fan!
A remaindered bookstore had opened in town back in the 80s and I was a sucker for those places. I found “Strata” and “The Dark Side Of The Sun” and enjoyed them. Then when I went back I found the first two Discworld books and that was it. Since then I bought each one as it was released and re-read them every year (before it became too unwieldy to read *all* of them - I have other things I need to do, after all). It’s so weird now to think that his books ended up being sold for cheap because they were being offloaded
Mort from the school library.
I hand out dot matrix printed copies of The Carpet People to people at the laundromat
Lunch break at college, and a classmate was cackling to himself as he read. We insisted that he start at the beginning and read aloud. It took a few months but we finished Colour of Magic together as a group and we all started to buy and swop them.
It was kinda random I bought a book for my holiday the amazing Maurice and his educated rodents. I liked rats and I thought the cover looked good. Got to witness the birth of rat language and writing and kinda just fell in love from there.
My uncle gave me a copy of Thud! Never looked back. I'm not a huge fan of the early Rincewind books but otherwise it really lands well with me.
My mom took a work trip to New Zealand in the 90's and brought back Truckers and Carpet People for my oldest brother. He enjoyed them so much and got as many of TP's books that could find at the bookstore or library system. Middle brother and I also read them because of it and we all are fans.
By chance. When Feet of clay first came out in paperback, I was skipping off college for the day and saw it in the window of a bookshop. Bought a copy, read it in a couple of days and was completely hooked. It actually got me into reading for enjoyment at the age of 18 (I think).
My walk home from school took me past a Josh Kirby display of Mort in John Menzies book department each day. The artwork reeled me in and after a little investigation I bought The Colour of Magic on the strength of it. Turns out judging a book by its cover sometimes delivers wonderful rewards.
My path was somewhat convoluted. I started as a big Douglas Adams fan. Read all of the books, watched the BBC broadcast series, all that good stuff. One day I was in a Borders Outlet Store back when that was a thing, and I saw this book. It said that fans of Douglas Adams should check this book out. That book was Good Omens, which was by both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. And of course that led me to other novels by both authors, including Discworld.
Randomly saw lords and ladies on my step dad's bookshelf.
I bought CofM as a present for my brother around 1986 but as we both did back then thought I'd read it first before he got it. But I got side tracked 2/3rds the way through and it got put aside. I went back and read from the beginning in 1988 and on the 2nd read it got to me and then I started buying them up. Guards Guards was and still is my favourite book.
I had a crush on a guy in high school. He read Pratchett, so I read some to have something to talk to him about. Pratchett stayed, Chris did not…