Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography

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Lively and affectionate, this is not a critical biography, but nor is it sycophantic. It shows Pratchett as brilliant and generous, but also cantakerous, with a ruthless sense of the ridiculous. i News Here’s the former press officer of the Central Electricity Generating Board, South Western Region, with his name in lights – Terry Pratchett at the peak of his powers. A moving and acutely observed account . . . Pratchett's magical mind, and dementia, by the man who knew him best. The Sunday Times 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.

Wilkins is a faithful and comprehensive documenter of Pratchett's life . . . moving and sensitive. Canberra Times So, mostly in the spirit of experiment, the two of them started building a book together. It was a lark, really – a side project with nothing hingeing on it except their own diversion. According to Terry they were “two guys who didn’t have anything to lose by having fun”. They were also two guys who operated at different ends of the day. Neil, at this point in his life, was largely allergic to the morning and would wake around lunchtime to flurries of crisp answerphone messages from his collaborator, which were generally variations on the theme of “Get up, you lazy bastard”. Look after Lyn, please. Have those fine pieces of jewellery cast to my design and give them with my love. Choose a gift every Christmas and birthday. Send flowers. Have a big dinner each year, more if necessary or if a celebration is required, and raise a brandy to my memory and to happy days.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.

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.I’ve read almost all of his books (no, I still haven’t been able to read the last Discworld book — and after reading about how it was written, in the last months of Terry being Terry, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to do that). I can quote him for hours and hours at length. I’ve seen every screen adaptation of his works. And yet I still didn’t know much about the person my literary hero was until I read this book. 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.’ It was this fear that drove him to put up on the wall of his office a large picture of WH Smith’s book-pulping machine. It was there, he said, to remind him to write a better book. A co na ní bylo tak zvláštního, že jsem se nakonec pročetla až do konce? Cit, hořkosladkost, naděje a plno zlomených srdcí mezi řádky. O pár set stran později se k nim to moje přidalo. Now, the book Terry sadly couldn't finish has been written by Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the Pratchett literary estate. Drawing on his own extensive memories, along with those of the author's family, friends and colleagues, Rob unveils the full picture of Terry's life - from childhood to his astonishing writing career, and how he met and coped with what he called the 'Embuggerance' of Alzheimer's disease.