For Laughs

I have found lately that I’ve been reading some pretty serious books dealing with grim issues. So I lightened things up a bit with the Discworld novel Maskerade. It turned out to be just what I needed. I found it quite humorous, and I don’t know anything about opera.

Discworld is a series of novels by British fantasy writer Terry Pratchett. It is called Discworld because the planet is actually a flat plane resting on the backs of four enormous elephants which are standing on top of Great A’Tuin, the giant star turtle. Satire and parody are used to poke fun at a variety of subjects. These have included other literary genres, such as the police procedural or fairy tales. Other books have done humorous takes on music, religion, the film industry, and Christmas.

There are more than thirty novels in the series so far, but most of these are self-contained stories. They can be grouped together based on the main protagonist, however. For example, some books feature the “good” witch Granny Weatherwax, while others the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and still others follow the misadventures of the incompetent wizard Rincewind. If you are in the mood for a light, funny story in which even Death himself can get some laughs, I would try one of these


- J.K.