Discworld as a collection is intimidating. The real secret is that it’s not a series, but a kind of pile. You can really start almost anywhere and read whatever.
That said, there’s kind of short sets with the same characters in groups throughout the books. I’d point people to these ones as reasonable starting points:
Equal Rites
Guards! Guards!
Mort
I’m sure other people will have various other suggestions or opinions and we’re all likely correct for our own reasons. There’s very little in Discord that isn’t top tier writing.
Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn’t much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.
After finishing those, I knew I’d want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you’d get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren’t in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).
Discworld as a collection is intimidating. The real secret is that it’s not a series, but a kind of pile. You can really start almost anywhere and read whatever.
That said, there’s kind of short sets with the same characters in groups throughout the books. I’d point people to these ones as reasonable starting points:
I’m sure other people will have various other suggestions or opinions and we’re all likely correct for our own reasons. There’s very little in Discord that isn’t top tier writing.
Those are the first 3 I read (first was GG, second Mort, third ER) because they all seemed recommended starting places. They are all origins of different sets of characters, so there isn’t much back lore for any of those 3, so it gives you a very broad look at life on the Disc.
After finishing those, I knew I’d want to read them all, so then I went and started from the beginning and the rest of the books made much more sense than I think they would skipping about and you’d get light spoilers, seeing maybe some characters being good guys when they weren’t in earlier stories or different groups gaining acceptance due to conflicts being resolved (or not).
When in doubt, start with the Watch: Guards! Guards!. Can’t go wrong.