Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography

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An insightful and moving biography detailing the extraordinary life of award-winning and bestselling author Terry Pratchett, written by Rob Wilkins, his friend, former assistant, and now head of the author's literary estate. This edition also features a number of photographs, some showing scribbles or notes or sketches and some old ones taken by the family. Here are some of them that nicely show Sir Terry, the author, the husband, father, boss, friend and nerd/geek. A truly wonderful and heartbreaking tale, filled with memories typed by Pratchett himself and lovingly woven with those of writer and ‘best PA in the world’ (read the book), Rob Wilkins. The unique humour and storytelling that carries you along in all of the adventure’s in Prattchett’s fiction is present throughout this biography which is filled with characters and situations as colourful and as rich as those from his books, making this a really enjoyable read. Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown Terry Pratchett was a true library lover and wrote, “it seemed to be that just being inside a library was nearly enough, as if everything in the books would permeate your skin by some kind of osmosis.” As a lad, he hung out at Beaconsfield Library and “found himself incorporated into the library workforce as a Saturday boy.” He worked at reshelving and repairing books on a voluntary basis. In return, the unspoken agreement was that he could borrow an unlimited number of books from the library.

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Next, I learned that, “Terry used to describe himself as ‘horizontally wealthy,” meaning that money hadn’t changed the person that he was, he could just afford to buy more things. However, he made some interesting choices, “instead of a Delorean DMC-12, Terry bought a shepherd’s hut,” which is “where [he] had the idea for the character of Tiffany Aching.”

Before his untimely death, Terry was writing a memoir: the story of a boy who aged six was told by his teacher that he would never amount to anything and spent the rest of his life proving him wrong. For Terry lived a life full of astonishing achievements: becoming one of the UK’s bestselling and most beloved writers, winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood. Rob Wilkins says: ‘Living a life alongside one of the world’s greatest authors, then reliving every moment for his biography, has been an incredible journey. Terry was one of the most talented, complex, intellectually stimulating people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting – a true genius. The responsibility of documenting his life when I lived so much of it with him has been such an emotive experience. A Life with Footnotes is a book that I hope would have made Terry proud.’ Wilkins has many advantages over most biographers, having not only known his subject well, but taken down notes while he was alive for his projected memoir. The result, at times, is like a ventriloquist act, with Pratchett's voice and personality emerging loud and clear. The Herald Flabbergastingly, there were also quite some history lessons in this book. I, for example, had not known there was a nuclear incident scaled 5-out-of-7 in Pennsylvania in the 70s (as a European, I mostly heard about Chernobyl and the much later incident at Fukushima but not much else). It’s this kind of added value that make this shine even brighter.

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official

There was Terry Pratchett who had to be bribed by his mother to do some reading until one day he found a book that enthralled him enough to start reading everything — and eventually create stories that similarly enthralled millions of readers. There was Pratchett the journalist and the nuclear industry press man, the guy who loved tinkering with electronics (and who had 6 monitor screens because - of course - there just wasn’t room for 8) and building greenhouses and raising goats. The man who from the age of 20 was the most married man in the world. The Terry who forged his own sword after being knighted for his contribution to literature (in your face, literary snobs). The Pratchett who could write two books a year because he took his job seriously, and yet have every book be amazing enough as though he’d spent years polishing it.

About Sir Terry

Why is he so underestimated? The world he created was brilliantly absurd – elephants all the way down – and strangely convincing. I remember arriving by car in Palermo, in Sicily, one day and one of my children saying “we’re on holiday in Ankh-Morpork”. Unlike any other fantasy world, Discworld constantly responds to our own. You’ve only got to look at the titles of the books ( Reaper Man, The Fifth Elephant) – parodies of films. Discworld is the laboratory where Pratchett carried out thought experiments on everything from social class and transport policy to the nature of time and death. Discworld, like Middle-earth, is immersive in a way that tempts people to dress up, draw street maps, tabulate its rules and pretend they live there

Terry Pratchett Home - Sir Terry Pratchett

He is often compared with PG Wodehouse but he’s closer to Swift. Or to GK Chesterton, from whom he drew so much inspiration. Like Chesterton, he is too bursting with ideas to confine himself to neat, prize-worthy volumes. He couldn’t even slow down enough to divide the books into chapters. And he has that Chestertonian quality of merriment, of intellectual play. Discworld, like Middle-earth, is immersive in a way that tempts people to dress up, draw street maps, tabulate its rules and pretend they live there. Even Pratchett himself, with his rings and his sword and his “manorette” of a house, sometimes gave the impression that he had just come down from the Ramtops. Transworld managing director Larry Finlay says: ‘ A Life with Footnotes captures the genius that was Terry Pratchett, with warmth, poignancy, and great good humour - and with no small amount of love. It's an intimate, engaging and revealing portrait of one of the UK’s most loved and most missed authors, that only Rob Wilkins could have written. It is a masterclass in great biographical writing.’Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography (Signed Forbidden Planet Special Edition Hardcover) by Rob Wilkins published by Doubleday Books @ ForbiddenPlanet.com - UK and Worldwide Cult Entertainment Megastore It was fun reading about the Discworld Conventions. At one in Liverpool, “the available food included what was widely agreed to have been one of the last servings of that dying culinary phenomenon, the Great British Curry, complete with obligatory sultanas, and there was something jelly-based for pudding.” When I first began reading Discworld I'd see the About the Author section (a couple of lines at best) and see he used to work as a journalist. Here we are treated to tales of his experiences, some so far fetched it's almost unbelievable (almost) and all that happened in his younger years that he used to become the phenomenally successful author he would become. His work ethic was second to none and his dedication to putting out quality book after quality book was breathtaking. Rhianna, Terry and Lyn Pratchett, dressed for a stage adaptation of Maskerade in 1995. Photograph: Penguin A deeply moving and personal portrait of the extraordinary life of Sir Terry Pratchett, written with unparalleled insight and filled with funny anecdotes, this is the only official biography of one of our finest authors.

Terry Pratchett to be published Official biography of Terry Pratchett to be published

This book is a wonderful insight into the life and mind of the late Sir Terry Pratchett. We follow his whole life story, through early years as a reporter onto his highly successful Discworld writing and ending with, well, The End. The author Rob Wilkins worked very closely with Pratchett for many years and it was wonderful reading his views and insights, and this, combined with quotes and notes from Terry himself in years past, really help deliver a personal experience. Reading this often felt like being in the room with the pair of them, so much so that I felt I should offer them a drink when pausing to make a cuppa. This biography was written by someone who knew him personally, and I must say it was by far the best biography I've ever read.He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. At sixty-six, Terry had lived a life full of achievements: becoming one of the UK's bestselling writers, winning the Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. The joy of this biography . . . is that it spins magic from mundanity in precisely the way Pratchett himself did. The Telegraph A emotional roller coaster of a book but I knew it would be, I laughed more then I cried but that's the way with Sir Terry's books, there could of been only one person to continue his biography and I'm glad Rob got the chance to do so. Deserves more then 5 stars!!! Drawing on his own extensive memories, along with those of Terry's family, friends, fans and colleagues, Rob recounts Terry's extraordinary story - from his early childhood to the literary phenomenon that his Discworld series became; and how he met and coped with the challenges that 'The Embuggerance' of Alzheimer's brought with it. The responsibility of documenting his life when I lived so much of it with him has been such an emotive experience. A Life With Footnotes is a book that I hope would have made Terry proud,” said Wilkins.