Namely that Terry Pratchett OBE just became Sir Terry Pratchett OBE

.

He's been characterized by serious reviewers as a combination of Chaucer, Swift, and Dickens, which seems about right to me. He's the only one apart from Dickens who routinely appears on the "best loved authors" list in Britain, and he's also holds the title of Most Shoplifted. :)

If you like English humor, you could do worse than read him. I started with Equal Rites (feminism and witchcraft) which was, I think, his third book. Unpolished compared to his later work, but a positive masterpiece of craft compared to any of Rowling's.

He's pigeonholed as a "fantasy" and "humor" writer, and until very recently his politics were nearly invisible. But last year the "microstroke" he'd had the year before was identified as "a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's" (he's only 60, poor bugger), and it's taken its toll on him. His Going Postal besides being as usual very funny was also a gloves-off indictment of privatization and the corporate greedy.

He's read by everyone from cynical 10-year-olds to middle-aged physics professors. He remarked in an interview that it was highly gratifying on a number of levels to suddenly learn, after the diagnosis, that among the fans of his work are two of the top brain researchers in the world!

I love dry humor and wit so I'm sure I'll like him.

I'll save him for better days. Thanks