Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography

Product Information

Transworld Publishers are thrilled to announce the publication of Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes, the official biography of Sir Terry Pratchett, written by Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author’s literary estate. And yes, it's the signed edition of a limited number. It also received special binding and the following additions: a postcard with a TP doodle and one of the most famous quote from the Discworld series, a doodle by Rob Wilkins, TP's gilded sigil (the honeybee) and more. And Wilkins clearly loved him, having been not just an employee but a friend and eventually, with the “embuggerance”, also often a caretaker. And yet his view of Terry is not that of starry-eyed admiration but a realistic one, with the down-to-earth admiration and sometimes tolerance and at times friendly exasperation. It’s both heartbreaking and funny, bittersweet and joyful — all at the same time. He doesn’t sugarcoat Terry at his highs or his lows, and that conveys the feeling of seeing a closeup of a real, complex person.

Transworld managing director Larry Finlay said that “only Wilkins” could have written the “intimate, engaging and revealing portrait of one of the UK’s most loved and most missed authors”.At six years old, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything. 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. I may be overwhelmed by indecision when asked to name anything as my absolute favorite (choices, there are just too many), unless you ask me who my favorite writer is. There is no hesitation there. It’s Terry Pratchett. Indisputably so.

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. After Terry was diagnosed with Posterior Cortical Atrophy, a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, in 2007, at the cruelly early age of 59, I began to accompany him at public appearances, reading for him when he no longer could, helping him through interviews on stage as “keeper of the anecdote”. We became, of necessity, a sort of double act. There are lots of facts, many culled from the unfinished autobiography that Pratchett was dictating during his last years, plus copious anecdotes that the omnipresent PA recalled. Given the nature of their professional relationship and friendship, there is also a small element of memoir on Wilkins part too. As promised in the subtitle of the book, there are copious footnotes. These are not academic references, but more like those of the Discworld novels—further comments of the author on the event in the text. Indeed there is no bibliography, so if you are in search of analysis you will be disappointed. Who would want to read a book that is suitable for you? Not me, for one. I wanted the unsuitable books.” - Terry Pratchett 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.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 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.

It isn't surprising that what most recommends this book is the anecdotes, amusing or sombre or often a mix of the two . . . It captures the spirit of Pratchett's writing by telling hard truths through an enjoyable-to-read layer and inspires rage, laughter and sadness in turns. The Sydney Morning Herald Terry often talked about “doing” his autobiography. In the years before he was ill, he talked about it almost exclusively to dismiss the idea. He didn’t seem persuaded that there was anything in the story of the journey that took a kid from a council house in Beaconsfield to a knighthood and a mansion near Salisbury by the sheer power of his imagination alone; or in the tale of how a boy with, as Terry put it, “a mouthful of speech impediments” became one of his generation’s most popular communicators; or how someone who left school with five O-levels could also go on to have an honorary professorship at Trinity College Dublin. And besides, there were always other things waiting to be written – bigger stories in which far more outlandish and arresting things were free to happen. Wilkins lays out stories where Pratchett, having found success in his writing, negotiates high-figure advances down out of concern that a particular book might not earn it out fast enough. Pratchett tries to have his books pulled from contention from awards because he hated being shortlisted if he wasn’t going to win. We were robbed of a genius who had so many more stories to tell us. But as long as his name is spoken he will never truly die. This is the greatest biography I've ever read and I feel so privileged to have been given insight into his incredible life 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.Wilkins is a faithful and comprehensive documenter of Pratchett's life . . . moving and sensitive. Canberra Times