A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett

It made me cry a little, laugh a lot, and swear to read The Carpet People as soon as I finish my re-read. I really recommend Back in Black to all the Pratchett fans.

But nobody’s really dead until all the ripples they have created on Earth have completely died away, so as long as my words and my stories are still sploshing around the planet, there’s life in the old dog yet. They say your life flashes in front of your eyes before you die. There is a very moving documentary from BBC, Terry Pratchett: Back in Black, the story of his life featuring Pratchett just before Alzheimer took him, a master of language struggling with simple words, but still a powerful, wise figure.

I prefer to learn about writers’ ideas through their novels, but Pratchett is important enough to me, and his untimely demise started my slow – and now accelerating – re-read of his books, and motivated me to learn more about the man himself. I’m now in the middle (at book 16, to be precise) of the systematic re-read of the entire Discworld and I appreciate him even more. Terry Pratchett is a very special author, one I’ve been reading for over 20 years. A Blink of the Screen, Terry's short fiction collection, was also one of the best-selling hardcovers of 2012.Summer continues, I’m actually starting my vacation tomorrow afternoon, and it’s going to be 2,5 weeks! But blogging requires some regularity, and so I decided to write a few words about a very special book. Snuff was the best-selling adult hardcover novel of 2011. With all the humour and humanity that have made his novels so enduringly popular, this collection brings Pratchett out from behind the scenes of the Discworld to speak for himself - man and boy, bibliophile and computer geek, champion of hats, orangutans and Dignity in Dying. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together for the first time the finest examples of Pratchett's nonfiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important) from memories of Granny Pratchett to speculation about Gandalf's love life, and passionate defences of the causes dear to him.

Terry Pratchett has earned a place in the hearts of listeners the world over with his best-selling Discworld series - but in recent years he has become equally well-known and respected as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer's research and animal rights. A collection of essays and other nonfiction from Terry Pratchett, spanning the whole of his writing career from his early years to the present day.

A Slip of the Keyboard by Terry Pratchett