The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 41)

"'I get up Aching, and I go to bed Aching,' she whispered to herself, smiling. One of her father's jokes, and she had rolled her eyes when hearing it again and again as a child, but now its warmth curled over her body.”

With Discworld's forty-first and final main volume, we also have the last Tiffany Aching novel. Tiffany’s workload is suddenly increased, we get to see more of Magrat, and we meet the unusual Geoffrey Swivel, all while dealing with some very witchy situations.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 40)

“The aristocrats, if such they could be called, generally hated the whole concept of the train on the basis that it would encourage the lower classes to move about and not always be available.”

With Discworld book forty, we have the last Moist Von Lipwig book. There’s been a slow but consistent trend of the Disc gaining technology over the years, and we get to see it make a giant leap into steam locomotives in this volume.

Snuff by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 39)

“I tell you, commander, it's true that some of the most terrible things in the world are done by people who think, genuinely think, that they're doing it for the best, especially if there is some god involved.”

The thirty-ninth book of the Disc is the final book that stars the watch. And specifically focused on Sam Vimes, his wondrous wife Sybil, and their country estate. Sam is forced by his wife to take a well-needed vacation, but he’s not exactly thrilled, and once they arrive at the pastoral setting, it’s not as idyllic as advertised.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 38)

“People aren't just people, they are people surrounded by circumstances.”

The thirty-eighth book of the Disc is also the fourth Tiffany Aching book. Our young witch is a bit older, being sixteen years old now, and once again has to grow as both a person and a witch to deal with a threat to the chalk, and beyond.

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 37)

“Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.”

Returning to Unseen University for book thirty-seven, we find out that they need to field a football (soccer) team to meet the conditions of a valuable endowment, or they won’t be able to keep eating nine meals a day, and no wizard worth his pointy hat can tolerate that!

Making Money by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 36)

“But what's worth more than gold?"

"Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren't you worth more than that?”

For Discworld book thirty-six, Moist Von Lipwig is back. He’s done a great job with the post office, but he’s bored with the mundane aspects of simply running the place instead of saving it. Enter the Patrician with an offer you can refuse, but only if you’re fine with never getting another offer from anyone ever again.

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 35)

“This I choose to do. If there is a price, this I choose to pay. If it is my death, then I choose to die. Where this takes me, there I choose to go. I choose. This I choose to do.”

The thirty-fifth book of Discworld is also the third Tiffany Aching book. The Wintersmith has taken an interest in her, to the detriment of the people on the chalk, and she has to deal with his unwelcome attention.

Thud! by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 34)

“He hated games, they made the world look too simple. Chess, in particular, had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the king lounged about doing nothing. If only the pawns would've united... the whole board could've been a republic in about a dozen moves.”

The thirty-fourth book of Discworld features the Watch and the ancient rivalry between trolls and dwarves. The battle of Koom Valley was long ago, but its memory lives on and is still a cause of friction between the two species, and that friction is bubbling up in Ankh-Morpork.

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 33)

“There is always a choice."
"You mean I could choose certain death?"
"A choice nevertheless, or perhaps an alternative. You see, I believe in freedom. Not many people do, although they will of course protest otherwise. And no practical definition of freedom would be complete without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based."

The thirty-third book of the Disc starts off with a rather interesting protagonist. It’s not often our main character is hanged in the first few pages, after all…

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 32)

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

The thirty-second Discworld book is also the second Tiffany Aching book. She’s a bit older now; eleven instead of nine, but she still has a lot to learn as an aspiring witch, so Miss Tick arranges for her be trained by another of their number outside of the chalk where Tiffany lives.

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 31)

“You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.”

For the thirty-first book of the Disc, we visit the ultra-conservative country of Borogravia and its incessant state of war with its neighbors for spurious reasons.

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 30)

“Yes! I'm me! I am careful and logical, and I look up things I don't understand! When I hear people use the wrong words, I get edgy! I am good with cheese. I read books fast! I think! And I always have a piece of string! That's the kind of person I am!”

The first book about Tiffany Aching, and the thirtieth book in the series, The Wee Free Men sees our young promising witch meet Perspicacia Tick, a witch and teacher, that brings a speaking toad that knows a lot about legal matters. Ms. Tick (and yes, the pun is obvious and intentional) sees the potential in Young Tiffany, and the Nac Mac Feegles, little blue Scottish pictsies (as opposed to pixies) that love to fight, drink, and steal. We’ve met some of them before in earlier books, but they’ve never been as prominent as in this volume.

Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 29)

"But here's some advice, boy. Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions."

Book twenty-nine of Discworld is another book of the Watch and also the History Monks, and Lu-Tze in particular. When Vimes chases the reprehensible Carcer across the library dome of UU, they both end up in Ankh-Morporks’s past, thanks to the mix of powerful storm and ancient magic buried there.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 28)

“If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.”

The twenty-eighth book of Discworld is all about a sapient cat who runs a pied piper racket with a tribe of intelligent rats and a young flutist named Keith. They do well with this racket until they run into some trouble in Uberwald at a town called Bad Blintz.

The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 27)

“The place where the story happened was a world on the back of four elephants perched on the shell of a giant turtle. That's the advantage of space. It's big enough to hold practically anything, and so, eventually, it does.”

Book twenty-seven is a bit of an anomaly. It’s a large book as far as its height and width, although not as thick as other Discworld books, barring Eric. It’s also lavishly illustrated by Paul Kidby, and is something of a graphic novel.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 26)

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH,' the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.”

Book twenty-six, as one can infer from the title, is about time. It also stars Death and Susan and some other people we meet in this particular volume, as they deal with the temporal purloiners in question. The auditors of reality are at it again. Humans are too unorganized and chaotic for those gray-robed cosmic bureaucrats, so they set another plan in motion to deal with them. And they’re really out to get us this time around.

The Truth by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 25)

“Really true? Who knows? This is a newspaper, isn't it? It just has to be true until tomorrow.”

The twenty-fifth Discworld book is focused on the twin cities of Ankh-Morpork and some world-building. Dwarves there have invented the printing press, and this means the floodgates of new ideas are opened, and not everyone approves.

The Fifth Elephant By Terry Pratchett (Discworld 24)

"He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry, they created vast banquets in their imagination – but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips, if it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato."

Book twenty-four of Discworld is another book about the watch, so expect some significant crime(s). It also places Sam Vimes, the watch's commander and reluctant duke of Ankh-Morpork, in a position he never expected, as the Patrician assigns him as the city's ambassador to Uberwald, a position he's none too happy about, although the reader has a lot to be happy about as usual when reading a Discworld book.

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 23)

"On the rare maps of the Ramtops that existed, it was spelled Überwald. But Lancre people had never got the hang of accents and certainly didn't agree with trying to balance two dots on another letter, where they'd only roll off and cause unnecessary punctuation."

Discworld's twenty-third book sees us back at Lancre. This means we get to see the witches, the newly expanded royal family, the dwarf lover Casnunda, albeit only briefly, and the locals we know and love from prior novels, such as Shawn Ogg, Jason Ogg, and Hodgesargh.

The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 22)

"People don't live on the Disc any more than, in less hand-crafted parts of the multiverse, they live on balls. Oh, planets may be the place where their body eats its tea, but they live elsewhere, in worlds of their own which orbit very handily around the centre of their heads."

The twenty-second Discworld book focuses on our hapless 'wizzard' Rincewind, the staff at Unseen University, and as the title suggests, a hitherto mostly conjectural land mass, although not to the people that actually live there.