Discworld (abridged)

'I thought: opera, how hard can it be? Songs. Pretty girls dancing. Nice scenery. Lots of people handing over cash. Got to be better than the cut-throat world of yoghurt, I thought. Now everwhere I go there's...' Death, to be precise. And plenty of it. In unpleasant variations. This isn't real...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'The work of a prolific humorist at his best' Observer The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . . ____________________ 'Sorry?'...

It's the night before Hogswatch. And it's too quiet. There's snow, there're robins, there're trees covered with decorations, but there's a notable lack of the big fat man who delivers the toys... He's gone. Susan the governess has got to find him before morning, otherwise the sun won't rise. And...

Throughout history, there's always been a perfectly good reason to start a war. Never more so if it is over a "strategic" piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is, after all, every citizen's right to bear arms to defend what they consider to be their own. Even if it isn't. And in such pressing circumstances, you really shouldn't let small details like the absence of an army get in the way of a righteous fight with all the attendant benefits of out-and-out nationalism.

There's nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Especially when those same academics are by chance or bad judgement deposited at a critical evolutionary turning point when one wrong move could have catastrophic results for the future. Unfortunately, in the hands of such an inept and cussed group of individuals, the sensitive issue of causality is, sadly, only likely to receive the same scant respect that they show to one another.

Brought to you by Penguin. 'Terry Pratchett will remain an enduring, endearing presence in comic literature' Guardian The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is...

Sam Vimes is a man on the run. Yesterday he was a duke, a chief of police and the ambassador to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the...

Brought to you by Penguin. William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. New printing technology means that words just won't obediently stay nailed down like usual. There's a very real threat of news getting out there. Now he must cope with the traditional perils...

Brought to you by Penguin. Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. You mess with it at your peril. You can let it move fast or slowly but what you mustn't do is allow it to stop. On the Discworld, time management is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from...

Brought to you by Penguin. Maurice, an amazing cat who has survived four years on the toughest streets in the whole of the Discworld, reckons that rats are dumb. Clever, OK, but dumb. Maurice, however, is smart. Smart enough to recognize that there's a new kind of rat around - rats who have been...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.' For a policeman, there can be few things worse than a serial killer loose in your city. Except, perhaps, a serial killer who...

A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . . Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle – aka the Wee Free...

It begun as a sudden strange fancy . . . Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time . . . And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother. But...

A real witch never casually steps out of her body, leaving it empty. Eleven-year-old Tiffany does. And there's something just waiting for a handy body to take over. Something ancient and horrible, which can't die . . . Wise, witty and wonderful, A Hat Full of Sky is Terry Pratchett's second...

Brought to you by Penguin. 'One of the best expressions of his unstoppable flow of comic invention' The Times The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . . The...

Koom Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin, and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Tiffany Aching put one foot wrong, made one little mistake . . . And now the spirit of winter is in love with her. He gives her roses and icebergs, says it with avalanches and showers her with snowflakes - which is tough when you're 13, but also just a little bit . . . cool. And just because the...