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Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

Der Band paßte gerade noch in meine Lesezeit bevor das neue Buch von Julian Barnes auf dem Paperwhite eintrudelte. Immer wieder schön: das ungleiche und unharmonische Team Detritus und Cuddy - schade, dass es nur für dieses Buch reichte, aber im Grunde verständlich.

It was the way he wore the place. You expected him any moment to break into the kind of song that has suspicious rhymes and phrases like 'my kind of town' and 'I wanna be a part of it' in it; the kind of song where people dance in the street and give the singer apples and join in and a dozen lowly matchgirls suddenly show amazing choreographical ability and everyone acts like cheery lovable citizens instead of the murderous, evil-minded, selfcentred individuals they suspect themselves to be. But the point was that if Carrot had erupted into a song and dance, people would have joined in. Carrot could have jollied a circle of standing stones to form up behind him and do a rumba.

(Terry Pratchett, Men At Arms, 1993)

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Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay

Vielleicht hätte ich doch mit 'Men at Arms' weitermachen sollen, aber jetzt ist es zu spät, und wenn man die Serie schon so oft gelesen hat, spielt es auch keine Rolle mehr...

He could hear his granny speaking, 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.
What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit the world, and what had the poor bastards done to deserve that?
Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.
People said there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigible lawless. All the laws and the rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

(Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay, 1996)

Neu gelesen: (als E-Book)

Jojo Moyes, Still Me

Okay, nur einen Tag, solange hielt das Buch vor, weil ich mich mal wieder - wie immer - nicht davon losreißen konnte. Das lag auch daran, dass dieser dritte Band in der Serie um Louise Clark mindestens genauso gut, wenn nicht fast besser ist als seine Vorgänger. Der Blick auf New York und speziell den wirklich exklusiven Teil rund um Fifth Avenue aus den Augen einer Provinzengländerin macht einfach nur Spaß während ihre Erlebnisse ohne Umwege direkt ans Herz rühren.

Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn't. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.

(Jojo Moyes, Still Me, 2017)

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Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

Dieser Band in der Tiffany Aching Serie musste noch sein - aller guten Dinge sind schließlich drei. Und ich wünschte oft, dass Pratchett es bei den drein belassen hätte, aber seis drum. Mittlerweile ist das neue Buch von Jojo Moyes endlich auf dem Paperwhite aufgeschlagen und damit erübrigt sich die Frage welcher Discworldband als nächstes dran ist erstmal für ein paar Tage.

That's Third Thoughts for you. Wehn a huge rock is going to land on your head, they're the thoughts that think: Is that an ingneous rock, such as granite, or is it sandstone?

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith, 2006)

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Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky

Wie das so geht, Band 1 der Tiffany Aching Saga zieht fast zwangsläufig Band 2 und 3 nach sich. Vor allem wegen der neuen Charakteren darin, hier vor allem die gute Miss Level mit ihren zwei Körpern, und mit dem Hiver eine ganz neue Art von Monster. Mit Band 4 muss ich mir noch überlegen - kann sein, dass mir da ein paar weitere Sam Vimes Bände lieber sind, wie Feet of Clay und/oder Thud.

Do you? Do you know what it feels like to be aware of every star, every blade of grass? Yes. You do. You call it 'opening your eyes again'. But you do it for a moment. We have done it for eternity. No sleep, no est, just endless... endless experience, endless awareness. Of everything. All the time. How we envy you, envy you! Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless cold deeps of space! You have this thing you call ... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song, it went "Twinkle twinkle little star..." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

(Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky, 2004)

Wiedergelesen: (nach längerer Zeit)

Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Durchaus möglich, dass dieser Band auch in den obersten Fünf meiner Lieblingsdiscworldbände rangiert. Auf jeden Fall gehört er zu denen, die immer wieder mal gelesen werden wollen, auch wenns nur einmal pro Dekade ist. Und die Nac Mac Feegle gehören sowieso seit ihrem ersten Erscheinen in der Discworld für mich zu deren originellsten, faszinierendsten und vermutlich witzigsten Bewohnern.

And I'm in Fairyland, where dreams can hurt. Somewhere all stories are real, all songs are true. I thought that was a strange thing for the Kelda to say ...
Tiffany's Second Thoughts said: Hang on, was that a First Thought?
And Tiffany thought: No, that was a Third Thought. I'm thinking about how I think about what I'm thinking. At least, I think so.
Her Second Thoughts said: Let's all calm down, please, because this is quite a small head.

(Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, 2003)

Wiedergelesen: (nach längerer Zeit) (als E-Book)

Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

Nach mittlerweile sechs Jahren wollte auch dieser Discworldband, der erste mit Sam Vimes, wiedergelesen werden, und weil er ein bisschen günstiger war als die anderen Bände lud ich ihn mir auf den Kindle. Bis auf die Footnotes, die bei der elektronischen Version immer hinten angehängt werden und das nachschlagen so fummelig machen, finde ich die Version auch angenehmer. Das war höchstwahrscheinlich auch nicht das letzte Mal, dass ich mir diese höchsteigene Mischung aus Fantasysatire und Noirkrimi zu Gemüte geführt habe. Wäre ja auch schade.

Books bend space and time. One reason the owners of those aforesaid little rambling, poky second-hand bookshops always seem slightly unearthly is that many of them really are, having strayed into this world after taking a wrong turning in their own bookshops in worlds where it is considered commendable business practice to wear carpet slippers all the time and open your shop only when you feel like it. You stray into L-space at your peril.
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'Down there,' he siad, 'are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.'
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(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!, 1990)