by Terry Pratchett
First sentence: “The wind howled.”
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Others in the series: Equal Rites
Content: There’s some brief talk about sex, and the more Shakespeare you know the better this one is. It’d be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore if we had it in the store.

First off: you really don’t have to read these in order. I kind of am, and so I’m going to list them as part of a series, but each of these books stand on their own. (That said, there was a small footnote about a professor at the wizard school being turned into an orangutan and I was able to laugh because I *remembered* that, which makes it so much better.)

Things that make Wyrd Sisters fantastic: all the Shakespeare references. I know I didn’t catch them all, but they’re there. And the ones I did catch made me laugh. It’s not just that the whole book was loosely based on Macbeth, but other little things, like the theater being called “The Dyske” or various characters trying to speak Shakespearean. Or my favorite: “I’d like to know if I could compare you to a summer’s day. Because — well, June 12th was quite nice…”

I also thoroughly enjoyed the witches. I didn’t much care for Granny Weatherwax in Equal Rites, but I feel like, set against Nanny Ogg and Magrat (who I kept calling “Margaret” in my head), she was awesome. Super practical, very blunt and always Right. I liked the three witches together, how they worked with (and against, sometimes) each other, for the better of this silly little kingdom. I could definitely read more of this Granny Weatherwax.

And so I probably will. There’s a handful more in the Witches Discworld series before you get to Tiffany Aching and I’m planning on going through them all.