Hogfather

Hogfather 

by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Besides dealing with the importance of belief in the Hogfather this novel takes a wider view and considers the tooth-fairy, and bogeymen, and similar characters. Ultimately it is exploring what it means to be human. Many Discworld novels focus on one character or group but this one is pretty evenly balanced between Death and the Wizards of Unseen University. A few familiar watchmen even make an appearance.

Pratchett raises a lot of very valid questions (this is one of my favorite parts of his books) in ways that kind of sneak up on you. 

“Everything starts somewhere, though many physicists disagree. But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things. They wonder how the snow-plough driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the spelling of words.”

“The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.”

This book was on my Literary Christmas list and also counts toward the Turtle Recall Challenge.