Wow. Just wow. This book was amazing. It contains essays of late Sir Terry Pratchett. Some of them concern his childhood and how he grew to love reading. Some of them concern his battle with Alzheimer’s and his strive to make assisted death legal. Others concern everything in between.
Unfortunately, I was not a huge reader and haven’t heard of Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” series until 2016. It’s really a shame, because I loved every Discworld book which I have read so far (not many, but i’ll get there in time). It’s amazing how he could craft an interesting story and fill it with humor and philosophy. He could take a fantasy cliche, turn it around, make fun of it and make you think about real world stuff, while telling you a compelling story.
Reading this collection was a pure delight. It was interesting to read Terry’s thoughts about fantasy and it’s place in literature, healthcare, touring or just about his normal day or any other topic that Sir Terry wrote an essay about. This book made me want to start writing something.
It was a bit hard to read the third part of this book, because it’s there that Terry talks about Alzheimer’s disease and assisted death. It’s really heartbreaking, but definitely worth a read.
After reading this essays I felt some sort of a void and regret that he is no longer alive. He just seemed such a genuine, kind and humorous person, full of humanity and compassion… It’s a shame really, but his legacy lives on in every novel or essay he wrote and in every kind deed that he carried out. He lives on in the hearts of his family, friends and readers. As Sir Terry said himself:
“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…”
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
