> I picked up Equal Rites soon after it came out when I was eighteen I read Colour of Magic when I was 13 I think. It might have been a year or two later; a fr

> I picked up Equal Rites soon after it came out when I was eighteen I read Colour of Magic when I was 13 I think. It might have been a year or two later; a friend's mother had heard the Radio 4 "Woman's Hour" reading of Equal Rites and recommended them to me as she knew I liked Douglas Adams. Adams and Pratchett had this in common - they had sufficient layers of jokes in them that they could appeal to both me in my early teens, and a friend's mother in her 40s (roughly). I missed a huge number of gags on the first read through. I like to re-read familiar books, though, and I used to get a few more each time through. Until I read the APF there were still a bunch of historical gags or similar that I was missing by a country mile! I'm sure there are plenty more that have still gone over my head. I honestly think that Pratchett was a better writer than Wodehouse, even though that's practically heresy for a Brit.