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Interesting Times
Interesting Times
Jul 9, 2025 4:00 PM

Author:Terry Pratchett

Interesting Times

'There is a curse. They say: may you live in interesting times . . .'

This is the worst thing you can wish on a citizen of Discworld. Especially for the magically challenged Rincewind, who has already had far too much excitement in his life.

Unfortunately, the unlucky wizard always seems to end up in the middle of, well, absolutely everything. So when a request for a 'Great Wizzard' arrives from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's obviously Rincewind who's sent. For one thing, he's the only one who spells wizard that way.

Once again Rincewind is thrown headfirst into a dangerous adventure. For the oldest empire on the Disc is in turmoil and Chaos is building. And, for some reason, someone believes Rincewind will have a vital role in the coming war . . .

'Pratchett is a comic genius' Daily Express

'Funny, delightfully inventive, and refuses to lie down in its genre' Observer

Interesting Times is the fifth book in the Wizards series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order.

Reviews

Funny, delightfully inventive, and refuses to lie down in its genre

—— Observer

Cracking dialogue, compelling illogic and unchained whimsy... Pratchett has a subject and a style that is very much his own

—— The Sunday Times

Much of Pratchett's appeal lies in his humanism, both in a sentimental regard for his characters' good fortune, and in that his writing is generous-spirited and inclusive

—— Guardian

Masterly ... This story of moral failings and totalitarian excess is as disturbing as it is irresistible

—— Peter Carty , i

Osborne's whodunnit is wrapped in an atmospheric portrait both of a particular place and time, and of the creation and destruction of a friendship. Highly recommended

—— Guardian

[A] timely, elegantly written novel

—— Spectator

A finely judged blend of mystery and menace will keep you guessing

—— Observer

Brilliantly deadpan and spiky in all the right ways. An accurate, darkly funny but also brutal portrayal of everyday workplace and world power dynamics. I couldn't put it down

—— Emily Itami, Costa-shortlisted author of Fault Lines

With her sun-bleached Hollywood setting, Kaplan transports us to another world - one which is achingly familiar. A novel which makes us examine our own complicity, while also weaving in threads of tenderness, drive and office-based humour which at times feels delightfully absurd . . . I inhaled this book - and came up for air still reeling

—— Katie Hale, author of My Name is Monster

Ambition bites back in Isabel Kaplan's Not Safe For Work, a novel that hits close to a few recent news events . . . So visceral is the narrator's voice that every time I opened the book felt like sliding into uncomfortable heels. Brave

—— New York Times

An intoxicating exploration of male-dominated workplaces . . . NSFW is gripping, with a lot to unpack, making it excellent book-club fodder

—— TIME, Best Books of July 2022

An energetic page-turner with plenty of delicious insights into Hollywood . . . and countless witty, wry passages

—— Jewish Chronicle

Frank, funny and unputdownable, Isabel Kaplan's NSFW takes you on an ambitious young woman's wild ride through Hollywood. Her mother's a famous feminist lawyer, and she's a rising executive star, mistress of her destiny. But behind the glitter and the justice, everyone is tarnished and compromised - including even our narrator. Kaplan, with her sharp and nuanced eye, sees it all, and tells it brilliantly.

—— Claire Messud , -

A frank account of the inherent filthiness of leaning in. A study of the psychological, and at times literal, gymnastics that are required of striving women.

—— Raven Leilaini , -

I read this steely investigation of workplace ambition and patriarchal complicity in one sitting, my alliances shifting with every page. Funny, insightful, and enraging in all the best ways, NSFW is a fiercely smart debut that turns its gaze back on the reader, forcing you to ask just how far you'd go - and who you'd throw under the bus - for a seat at the table.

—— Julie Buntin , -

A stunning portrayal of intergenerational family love and the complications of the human condition. I was swept up in the world of the Aylward women: in their power and pain and mostly, in their fierce resilience. A novel full of compassion and honesty, where love triumphs. The prose is pitch perfect.

—— ELAINE FEENEY

Hymn to the warp and woof of life; celebration of the flip-flop way of family; soaring testimony to the endurance of the human spirit. And all delivered with his trademark compassion, empathy, humour and brio. A gift of a book.

—— ALAN McMONAGLE

A compelling read

—— SAINSBURY'S MAGAZINE

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this is a gorgeous, life-enhancing novel.

—— Mail on Sunday

Ryan's writing is like poetry and he has a real gift for creating characters who live in full technicolour. Highly recommend

—— Good Housekeeping

In Ryan's hands the mundane and the everyday is transformed into a thing of beauty, thrumming with significance.

—— REFINERY 29

Tender with comic observation ... a topsy-turvy emotional rollercoaster

—— DAILY MAIL

Magical

—— OBSERVER

Exquisitely rendered. It reads like musical sounds, full of light and lilting melody...it's funny and sad, and sparks with the most tremendous, tart, wit.

—— INews

The characters are compelling and vividly drawn, the dialogue is profane and frequently hilarious; the prose drips like honey off a spoon.

—— SUNDAY TIMES

A jewel of a novel that will surely become a classic... enthralling and unmissable

—— DAILY EXPRESS, 'Fiction Highlights of 2022'

A celebration of love and loyalty among women.

—— IRISH INDEPENDENT

Big-hearted, generous and brimful of emotion, this a gorgeous, life-enhancing read

—— IRISH MAIL ON SUNDAY

It is a beaut. It's a celebration of women and of womanhood. I see my mother in this, I see my sister ... This book is a joy.

—— RYAN TUBRIDY

If language - lyric, lovely and funny, steeped in County Tipperary - and women (men come and go, rarely center a chapter and are often useless, sometimes cruel) are of no interest to you, The Queen of Dirt Island is not your next read. Ryan's book is a celebration, in an embroidered, unrestrained, joyful, aphoristic and sometimes profane style, of both ... The Queen of Dirt Island gives the women their due, and the reader is rewarded.

—— NEW YORK TIMES

Donal Ryan's The Queen of Dirt Island is a little Irish miracle ... there's as much implicit wisdom in these pages about how to live as how to write ... Ryan has his own emotional range and a way of capturing the largeness of what look like tiny lives but aren't

—— WASHINGTON POST

Ambitious, unsettling and funny, this book is full of desire and mischief with surprising results.

—— Platinum, *Summer Reads of 2022*
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