I got this book as a gift from a good friend. “It’s a Thanksgiving present”., she said. I’d never read anything by Pratchett before, and had been planning on reading one of his books, in that nebulous time all things are supposed to get done in, known as “Someday”. My friend, undoubtedly realizing the vast distance from Now until Someday, went ahead and put the book directly into my hand. A very good strategy, as it made me go ahead and read a book by Terry Pratchett long before Someday actually arrived. I even had some left over time to spare, which allowed me to write this review, for you to read when Someday does finally arrive. After having read this book, and enjoying it greatly, I believe that, henceforth, the official gift to give a procrastinating friend as a “Thanksgiving present” shall be a novel by Terry Pratchett.

While I’m not certain if Wyrd Sisters is, in fact, the first book in the series, I do know that it reads quite well on it’s own. There is a wonderful description of Discworld, what it is, what it looks like, and why so much magic can be found there. Once you learn about all of that, you are ready to jump in and explore Discworld for yourself.

In this book we meet three very influential women of Discworld, Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick, who are also known as “The Wyrd Sisters”. Granny Weatherwax is proper, somewhat conservative, and a witch. Nanny Ogg is wild, passionate, (both about her drink and her men), and also a witch. Margrat is young, not yet confident, and learning how to be a witch. The three clash on how to go about doing most things witches do, but, manage to work together when they really need to. It is my understanding that these three characters appear in other Pratchett novels, which makes me happy, because I would love to hear about whatever else they end up doing.

At the beginning of this book, we meet King Verence, who is a king troubled with problems. One problem is that he happens to be quite dead. Another problem is that he is absolutely miserable as a ghost. His biggest problem might be either that his infant son wound up missing soon after his death, or, that his somewhat insane cousin, Duke Felmet, has now taken over the kingdom. It’s hard to tell which is worse.

The Wyrd Sisters, um… I’m going to say “find”, the infant son, and decide immediately exactly what is best for him. They get him adopted by traveling performers, where no one will ever think to look for him. Until, one day, the Wyrd sisters change their mind, go looking, and implement a creative and detailed plan to set things right once again.

In between, there are lots of things I am leaving out for the reader to find and enjoy for his or her self. Death is a character, and he’s rather funny at times. There is this horrible cat named Greebo, who is, by far, is my favorite character. I laughed out loud at every scene Greebo was in, and then insisted my poor husband listen to me read him those scenes, so he could laugh too. Greebo is awesome! There are lovers who are lacking in social skills so much that I doubted if they would ever manage to finally get together. Many characters have hidden identities. There is a dwarf who writes plays you just might find oddly familiar, and a magic stone, who is painfully shy.

Sound a bit strange? Well, that’s because it is. But, that doesn’t stop Pratchett from creating a world I’d like to visit if I could, or from tying up all the loose ends together in a colorful, if off-center, bow.

Imagine being thirteen years old, and knowing, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that you were conceived for a specific purpose. Anna Fitzgerald was selected from several other embryos by her parents, Sara and Brian, because she was as close a genetic match as possible to her older sister, Kate. Kate was dying of cancer, and none of the treatments were working anymore. Anna was created to save her sister’s life.

Anna donated chord blood when she was born. Then she donated blood to Kate, several times, screaming as the doctors held her down. Anna had to take shots every day for a while so her body would produce an extra amount of the things that Kate’s body needed. Kate received Anna’s bone marrow more than once. All of these procedures are painful and frightening, especially for a young child. Despite being healthy, Anna has had countless medical procedures done to her, and has been hospitalized many times. Now, Kate needs a kidney.

At the start of the book, Anna has scraped together money, and hired an attorney. She wants to be medically emancipated, so she can make her own decisions about what happens to her body.

This is the kind of book where none of the characters are good guys, but none are evil, either. Sara and Brian love all three of their children, but, because Kate is incredibly sick, she gets most of their attention. In desperation, they choose actions that might help Kate, but might also harm Anna. Anna, like many young teens, wants independence, and space to figure out who she is. She and Kate are best friends as well as sisters, and this makes things harder. Anna wants the opportunity to live her own life, Kate wants to live. Neither one wants to hurt the other. Jesse, the girl’s older brother, has gotten the least amount of parental attention. He loves both his sisters very much, and the strain of it all drives him to do what he can to help each of them, and also to drink and commit crimes. Sara quit her job as a lawyer to become a full time mother, so she could really participate in the lives of her children. Now, she finds her identity reduced to “Mother of the girl with cancer”, and she cannot see anything except Kate. Brian loves his family very much, but, finds himself spending more and more time at the firehouse where he works, because putting out fires is less traumatic than dealing with what he faces at home. Nobody in this book is perfect, no one is blameless.

This is a book that makes you think. Is it ever moral to create a child to use as a donor for a sick sibling? Can you be a good parent and not try absolutely everything with the slightest hope of saving your dying child? Does the child created as a donor ever get to make choices for themselves, or is that a selfish thing to do? Picoult raises these questions, but she allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

If you are looking for a book that will give your book group a whole lot of issues to talk about, this would be a great selection. In addition to the main story, there are subplots woven throughout. Campbell, Anna’s attorney, plays a prominent role. This is a man who is hiding things. He has a service dog, but refuses to tell anyone why he needs the dog. He also has had a past relationship with Julia, the woman who is assigned by the court to figure out what is in Anna’s best interest. There is much unfinished business between the two of them, which complicates the court case, and everything else.

This is the second book I have read by Jodi Picoult. The other book , Nineteen Minutes, did not capture my attention nearly as much as My Sister’s Keeper did. I would recommend starting with this book before reading anything else by Picoult, to see if you like her style of writing. Both of the books I have read of hers include one chapter from one character’s point of view, followed by a new chapter from an entirely different character’s point of view. All main characters are heard from, which I did like, but, I can see where this may be confusing for some readers. It does help that the font changes for each character, giving the reader an instant visual difference between the minds of each separate character, and a clue about which thoughts belong to whom. The ending of this book is sudden, and unexpected, and filled with mixed emotions. I am still not entirely certain I liked the ending, but, I cannot think of a better way to do it. It works, and it’s very well written, but, like everything else in this story, the ending is filled with both positives and negatives. This is one I book I will be thinking about long after I finish writing this review.

I came into reading Tricks of the Podcasting Masters as someone who’s been producing podcasts for several years. Because of that, I found myself skipping over many sections of this book. Regardless, the book does contain a lot of information that would be useful to a new podcaster. Keep in mind that Tricks of the Podcasting Masters is not a nuts-and-bolts podcasting manual. If you know absolutely nothing about how to record audio/video or set up an RSS 2.0 feed, you should read a different book first. But once you’ve got the hang of the basics, this book could help to take your podcasting game to the next level. There are a lot of helpful tips about promotion, interacting with an audience and community building. One of the book’s chapters covers advertising/monetizing. I’d suggest this part of the book as a mandatory read to anyone who wants to get into podcasting as a money-making venture. Tricks of the Podcasting Masters provides some pretty sobering evidence as to why it’s not so easy to get rich through podcasting. It should be noted that many of the podcasts that were referenced in this book have podfaded (no longer producing new shows). And I found that to be a bit of a distraction. But podcasting was spawned from the Internet, and any book covering Internet/technology topics is likely to have this kind of problem. Even though some of the book’s references are dated, many of the examples are still relevant. I’d recommend this book to newer podcasters who are trying to grow and improve in their craft. But if you’ve been at it for awhile, there probably won’t be much in this book that’s new to you.