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Jane's Great Re-Read: Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett – a review
Carpe Jugulum is the last of the first wave of witches novels. This time GRanny and the rest of the Lancre coven are faced with invading vampires from Uberwald. There are now four witches in Lancre, Granny, Nanny Magrat and Agnes but covens work best with three, you know: the maiden, the mother and the other one. A lot of this novel is about how roles change over time and what its like to feel out of place in the world. Magrat has given birth to a daughter and is keeping the name secret until the naming ceremony. King Verence has summoned an Omnian Priest and sent invitations out to…
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Jane's Great Re-read: Maskerade by Terry Pratchett – a review
This is possibly my favourite Witches novel so I have to warn you I am biased on this one. I shall declare my interests here. 1. Agnes Nitt was the first time I saw myself represented so completely in a novel. I will explain more fully later but at 15 I was Agnes Nitt. 2. If you know me at all you know I take part in a lot of amateur musical theatre. The jokes and references in this one come thick and fast 3. Greebo gets his human on again. Aw yeah! Reading Maskerade was the first time that Agnes takes centre stage in a story and it was…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Lords and Ladies By Terry Pratchett a Review
Lords and Ladies is the fourth Granny Weatherwax and the witches book. If Wyrd Sisters is Macbeth, Lords and Ladies is a Midsummer’s Night Dream. This picks up post Witches Abroad just when the trio have arrived back from Genua and sprints off into the distance. This book is about belief; it is about susperstition; it is about quantum and iron.
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Jane's Great Re-read: Witches Abroad – Review
Witches abroad is the third in Granny Weatherwax sequence and one of my personal favourites in a strong field. Terry Pratchett’s books are like onions there are layers. The basic plot is Magrat is left a Magic wand by one of the ramptops witches who also happens to be a fairy godmother. There is a girl in Genua who is going to a marry a prince and this being Discworld it needs to be stopped. Let me take a minute there with my proud feminist hat on and punch the air. Women fighting against the established narrative that a young girl must be wanting to marry the prince. Anyhoo, something…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters, the next in the Granny Weatherwax sequel. This is where we get all Shakespearean as Terry Pratchett takes on the Scottish Play with a good dollup of humour at all theatre. This is where Granny comes into her own as part of the coven with Magrat the Maiden, Nanny Ogg the Mother and Granny as well the other one. This was my first Discworld Novel and as such it does feel rather much like an old friend. There are some wonderful passages, not least the Storm that has been practising and random Andrew LLoyd Webber References. And that’s one of the reasons I really love Terry Pratchett, the…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Equal Rites – Review
Another old friend to back and visit. My relationship with the Discworld novels is avid reader but not necessarily a re-reader They are novels to be inhaled and enjoyed and to laugh out loud and make others want to know just what has made you guffaw. Most folks will not send you to Equal Rites as a first port of call. The Discworld novels have various streams you can follow based on various characters. Rincewind, Death and Susan, Sam Vimes, Granny WEatherwax, Moist Von Lipwig, Tiffany Aching and there are a few true stand alones. Equal Rites is the first novel to contain Granny Weatherwax, but at this point she’s…
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For Pterry
I was thirteen when I read my first Terry Pratchett novel. It was Good Omens with Neil Gaiman and I loved that book as only a teenager could. I obsessed over Crowley and Aziraphale and it has been a favourite of mine for a long time. After Good Omens came the Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic which were okay but the novel that got me hooked was Wyrd Sisters. As the cauldron bubbled an archaic voice shrieked: “When shall we three meet again?!!” There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: “Well I can do next Tuesday.” Wyrd Sisters Over the years I…
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Jane's Great Re-read: The Time Traveler's Wife – Review
*Wipes eyes and blows nose* Hello gang, well yes just finished the Time Traveler’s Wife again and I can report it still shreds me into tiny pieces. When I was 25 this book meant everything I was in a very volatile stage of my life and it gave me comfort and helped me come to terms with lots of life stuff and help me cry. I have not and will not see the film because I am not prepared to tarnish my vision of the novel. For those reasons it was a very important book and has been a permanent addition to my list of favourites. Coming back to it,…
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Jane's Great Re-Read: The Time Traveller's Wife
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is my next stop on the great Re-Read. For a while this book was everything to me. I had never read anything that was so beautiful and painful and perfect in my life. I discovered it in my mid twenties after coming out of a horrible relationship with a controlling person who was not good for me at all. I was seeing my current bloke and he was (still is for that matter) brilliant. We weren’t living together and only got to see each other depending on his shifts and what time we could scrape together.
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Jane's Great Re-Read: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Review
The final book in such an epic series always had such a lot of hype to live up to. I read it on the day it was published in two sittings and I had not read it since. Until now. What struck me the first time and was reinforced the second was just how much death there was and how much J K Rowling took from Harry. It still feels brutal the way that Hedwig is disposed of and it doesn’t get any easier as the read goes on. I do think that the book is flawed in some ways. The seemingly endless scenes in the woods camping got rather…
