:D …….. well, take a wild guess:

‘And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head.’

Yes, that’s right. And that’s how it happened: My friend Dominique had tried to convert me to Sir Terry’s awesomeness for a while, to no avail. I have a clear picture of my taste in books, and I was NOT CONVINCED, you see. Another friend, who is a sneaky, sneaky person, elegantly circumnavigated the desperate “it’s better than it sounds!” (really, try summing up any Discworld plot and tell me with a straight face it doesn’t sound insane) and just straight-out told me I reminded him of Tiffany Aching. Curiosity and vanity, two unavoidable pitfalls for me. I still don’t know why I reminded him of someone hitting other people with frying pans (just kidding, I totally do), but I’m eternally thankful that he brought me to Discworld.

I’m not even going to try and sum up the plot, because a) it really does sound insane and b) it’s friggin’ Discworld. It’s too amazing for plot summary. Pratchett takes well-known literary tropes and with cruel, merciless logic thinks them through to the end; thanks to his magnificent eye for absurdity and his spot-on comedic timing, hilarity ensues. But here’s the thing: his characters start out as cardbord-cutouts and transform into characters that feel real and relatable. Take Cheery Littlebottom, for example, the dwarf who discovered femininity, wearing ridiculous dresses and too much make-up along with her dwarf beard, ax and helmet. With a lesser writer, she would have been just a cheap laugh (and oh, the unfortunate implications of that!), but Pratchett actually shows her struggle and pain to find and accept her identity - as a girl, who is allowed to be girly and like girly stuff - in a culture where masculinity is the only thinkable option. She makes me laugh, she does, but she also tugs at my heart strings a lot.

And don’t get me started on the fact that Pratchett proves all those narrow-minded macho writers wrong who claim a man can’t write believable, strong female characters … because: Esme Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, Tiffany Aching, Susan Sto Helit, Angua, Adora Belle Dearheart, Eskarina Smith, Polly Perks? Your argument is INVALID. (And that’s only the main characters so far.) I think it’s quite telling that there are only few memorable villains in Discworld - for me, Wolfgang from The Fifth Elephant and Jonathan Teatime from Hogfather come to mind. The reason is that it’s not necessary - the protagonists can carry the weight of the plot alone, thank you very much. I can, for that matter, never decide which series I like better, the Witches or the City Watch. I could never warm to Rincewind and, don’t hit me, the Death and Susan Sto Helit books are hit and miss for me. Granny Weatherwax is my favourite character of pretty much all time, but I actually think I like the cast ensemble and the story dynamics of multi-ethnic Ankh-Morpork from the City Watch books better (plus the darker tone of the later books) (well, except for “That! Is!! Not!!! My!!!! COW!!!!!”).

I’m not much of a re-reader. My To-Read stack’s towering over me with a disapproving face (eh, it would if it had one) when I think of re-reading a book. A glimpse to Goodreads confirms that. I’m slowly re-reading the Discworld series, but at my current speed I’m done when I’m 90 years old. So no third re-read. The only book on there I’ve read actually more than three times is The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes by R. A. Stemmle (Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war, I don’t think there really is an English translation).

Now I know what you think: uh-oh, Sherlock Holmes fanfiction written by a German author. That can’t end well. The book however has little to do with Sherlock Holmes; in fact, the joke actually is that the Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes isn’t Sherlock Holmes at all. (No, that’s not a spoiler.) The book starts with two unsuccessful private detectives, Morris Flynn and Mackie MacMacpherson on their way to the World Expo in Brussels dressing up as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson - to attract more clients, obviously. Of course that plan backfires mightily as they get themselves into a big mess involving dastardly bank robbers, the theft of the Mauritius stamps, counterfeiting and two fair dames waiting to be rescued. And who’s the guy who breaks down laughing every time he sees them?

It’s not great literature, but it’s a fun, comforting little book that makes me feel good about myself again when I need it; and sometimes, that’s all a book should be. Sherlock Holmes fans won’t get much out of it, I’m afraid (as it really has nothing to do with the source material beyond a superficial level), but while the character Sherlock Holmes has never done much for me, Morris Flynn was one of my first literary crushes. For illustration, picture my eight year old self sighing along with the two fair damsels in distress - would he return our affections? Which one of us would he choose? The heart-wrenching fictional adventures we had, I tell you. (There’s also a movie starring Heinz Rühmann and Hans Albers … who’s so miscast as Flynn/Holmes it makes my little eight year old fangirl heart weep.)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is like a Hieronymus Bosch painting: bizarre but beautiful, and oh so rich. The book’s about: the devil, an unsuccessful writer, his unhappily married lover Margarita and Pontius Pilatus. Also, that is completely beside the point. For me at least - this is absolutely one of those books where different people will favour different things, because there’s just so much material, so many layers to work with. Satire? A portrait of the Soviet Union in the 1930s? An epic love story? Tales of redemption? Philosophy? Legends and the occult? Art and the artist? You’ll find everthing. For me, it was rich imagery; I could immerse myself in that book, see, hear, touch everything myself, and it was just so stunning and so much to discover, so many thoughts, so many pictures, that I’m sure you could read it again and again and always discover something new. It was magic. I couldn’t put it down and at the same time I wanted to read it slowly, slowly, to absorb absolutely everything, not miss anything, not leave its pages at all and ever again.