He is often compared with PG Wodehouse but he’s closer to Swift. Or to GK Chesterton, from whom he drew so much inspiration. Like Chesterton, he is too bursting with ideas to confine himself to neat, prize-worthy volumes. He couldn’t even slow down enough to divide the books into chapters. And he has that Chestertonian quality of merriment, of intellectual play. Discworld, like Middle-earth, is immersive in a way that tempts people to dress up, draw street maps, tabulate its rules and pretend they live there. Even Pratchett himself, with his rings and his sword and his “manorette” of a house, sometimes gave the impression that he had just come down from the Ramtops. A emotional roller coaster of a book but I knew it would be, I laughed more then I cried but that's the way with Sir Terry's books, there could of been only one person to continue his biography and I'm glad Rob got the chance to do so. Deserves more then 5 stars!!! Similar qualms on Terry’s part affected the price paid up front for Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman. During 1985, Neil had shown Terry a file containing 5,282 words exploring a scenario in which Richmal Crompton’s William Brown had somehow become the Antichrist. Terry loved it, and the concept stayed in his mind. A couple of years later, he rang Neil to ask him if he had done any more work on it. Neil, who had been spending that time thinking about his series The Sandman, for DC Comics, said he hadn’t really given it another thought. Terry said: “Well, I know what happens next, so either you can sell me the idea or we can write it together.” Neil knew straight away which of those options he preferred. As he said: “It was like Michelangelo ringing up and saying, ‘Do you fancy doing a ceiling?’”

Living a life alongside one of the world’s greatest authors, then reliving every moment for his biography, has been an incredible journey. Terry was one of the most talented, complex, intellectually stimulating people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting – a true genius.” Look after the business and it will look after you. For all you have done, for all of the little things and all of the much bigger things and for the burying of the bodies … I thank you. At the age of six, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything. He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. Terry lived a life full of achievements, becoming one of the UK’s bestselling writers, winning The Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature.The biography will be published in September. Publisher Transworld said it would move from Pratchett being told at the age of six by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything, through the writing of the bestselling Discworld series, his winning the Carnegie medal and his knighthood for services to literature. Wilkins will also cover how Pratchett coped with the challenges of Alzheimer’s. I wasn't sure what I was going to make of this to be honest. I have been a Pratchett fan since pretty much the beginning and my loyalty and love to Sir PTerry is one of the constants of my life. I didn't know what Rob was going to do in this book and I was very, very nervous. I needn't have worried. This is a wonderful, funny, glorious and deeply moving thing. I read it so fast and then as the last chapter loomed I slowed right down because I just didn't want it to end. And when I finally finished it, I cried and cried and cried. And what a job he's done. Terry had begun making notes for an autobiography but sadly did not live long enough to write it. In his absence Rob Wilkins has done an absolutely marvellous job of telling Terry's life story from his childhood when he didn't enjoy reading to the po Transworld managing director Larry Finlay says: ‘ A Life with Footnotes captures the genius that was Terry Pratchett, with warmth, poignancy, and great good humour - and with no small amount of love. It's an intimate, engaging and revealing portrait of one of the UK’s most loved and most missed authors, that only Rob Wilkins could have written. It is a masterclass in great biographical writing.’ Talking of humanity, I loved reading that his wife “Lyn’s strongest and most abiding first impression of Terry was of his kindness.”

Některý knihy mají tu sílu najít si k vám cestu, i když jste se ani neobtěžovali podívat se jejich směrem. Neplánovala jsem a nečekala na první výtisky v knihkupectví. Přesto se mi jeden z nich do rukou dostal. A abych neurazila zběsilé nadšení majitele onoho výtisku, nalistovala jsem si předmluvu a začala číst …

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We were robbed of a genius who had so many more stories to tell us. But as long as his name is spoken he will never truly die. This is the greatest biography I've ever read and I feel so privileged to have been given insight into his incredible life Before his death, Terry was working on an autobiography, which was never completed—but contrary to the hard-drive containing all of his unpublished fiction, which, in accordance with his final wishes, was ritually destroyed by a steamroller, Rob took it upon himself to finish what Terry had started. He draws largely from Terry’s unfinished manuscript, but also from the stories of friends, family, and former colleagues… and if you thought that it wouldn’t be all that interesting until Terry becomes the beloved, bestselling author we all think of him as, then you would be very wrong. He lived a life filled with astonishing achievements in a variety of jobs, and had some peculiar hobbies and interests, ranging from electrical engineering, to beekeeping, gaming, rescuing tortoises, gardening, and casting insects in gold and silver. Always one with an inquisitive mind and easily kindled curiosity, Terry insisted on forging his own sword after being knighted for services to literature. It’s all illuminating, and I appreciated that Rob didn’t try to sugarcoat or hide Terry’s more disagreeable personality traits, such as his irascibility and ingratitude, but there were also many sweet, and even more funny passages. The book turns truly exceptional in the solemn final third though—right around when Terry starts exhibiting some worrying symptoms, which culminated in an earth-shattering diagnosis of Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare, visual variant of Alzheimer’s disease. Everyone who is a Discworld fan has their favourite character. I have too many to mention but I'd like to mention The Luggage because that is the point (in the very first Discworld "The Colour of Magic") that I fell in love with all things Pratchett. Why is he so underestimated? The world he created was brilliantly absurd – elephants all the way down – and strangely convincing. I remember arriving by car in Palermo, in Sicily, one day and one of my children saying “we’re on holiday in Ankh-Morpork”. Unlike any other fantasy world, Discworld constantly responds to our own. You’ve only got to look at the titles of the books ( Reaper Man, The Fifth Elephant) – parodies of films. Discworld is the laboratory where Pratchett carried out thought experiments on everything from social class and transport policy to the nature of time and death. Discworld, like Middle-earth, is immersive in a way that tempts people to dress up, draw street maps, tabulate its rules and pretend they live there