2008-06-20 A high point

I came to this title late having started the discworld series with 'Jingo'. This is pretty close to being the best of the lot with the grumpy matriarch Granny Weatherwax, treble entendre spinning nanny Ogg & the seemingly hopeless Magrat Garlick all off to far flung lands to try & stop a totally unhinged witch from forcing everyone to live in one long giant fairy story.
The sparring between Granny & Magrat is sharp & very funny with Nanny Ogg trying her best to keep the peace while being given the chance to dabble with foreign liquor & show off her painful mastery of languages.
In amongst the lunacy mr.pratchett manages some real moments of touching sadness, the whole little 'red riding hood' story arc manages to mix laughter with a real lump in the throat moment where the 'big bad wolf' actually welcomes his death.
Talking of death, he too keeps popping up, but without anyone knowing who he is. Nanny Oggs fearsome cat Greebo gets to try his hand at being a human & the ladies all meet their deep south equivalent,(including zombie), who lends a hand.
Up 'til I read this I thought nothing discworld could touch 'nightwatch' and 'though that book still just beats this it's not by much. This is genuinely funny & has many laugh out loud moments.
If you've read other's in the series & enjoyed them but not tried this then don't hang about, this is superb. If you simply haven't tried Discworld at all then this is a great place to start,(if you don't enjoy this then you might want to get your pulse checked!),.