Witches Abroad
It's not a stretch to call Witches Abroad one of my most influential books. It might very well be my most influential book. It changed the way I look at the world, especially at stories. This book points out tropes and then picks them apart and undermines them, all while playing by the rules of the narrative. After reading it, I started paying much closer attention to everything else I was reading. I developed a feel for stories and began to really understand how they work and why.
On it's surface, Witches Abroad is a silly book that combines fairy tales and road trips. The witches travel to Genua to defeat an evil fairy godmother, and along the way they encounter any number of "rural myths", from Sleeping Beauty to Dracula to Little Red Riding Hood. It's those encounters, all leading up to the final encounter that add so much hilarity and richness to the book. Moreso than any other Discworld book, and this is a common theme in the series, this book is about how we relate to stories. How we shape them and how they shape us and how sometimes we need to step away and just let life happen, even though we'll ultimately turn that into just another story.
This was my favorite Discworld book for a very long time. It's the first book I read in my very own apartment, so it has all sorts of pleasant memories attached to it. But beyond that, the book speaks to my soul. It's about things I care about and understand deeply. Revisiting it, I'm reminded of just how strongly I fell in love with it in the first place.
On it's surface, Witches Abroad is a silly book that combines fairy tales and road trips. The witches travel to Genua to defeat an evil fairy godmother, and along the way they encounter any number of "rural myths", from Sleeping Beauty to Dracula to Little Red Riding Hood. It's those encounters, all leading up to the final encounter that add so much hilarity and richness to the book. Moreso than any other Discworld book, and this is a common theme in the series, this book is about how we relate to stories. How we shape them and how they shape us and how sometimes we need to step away and just let life happen, even though we'll ultimately turn that into just another story.
This was my favorite Discworld book for a very long time. It's the first book I read in my very own apartment, so it has all sorts of pleasant memories attached to it. But beyond that, the book speaks to my soul. It's about things I care about and understand deeply. Revisiting it, I'm reminded of just how strongly I fell in love with it in the first place.
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