March Magics is here! This annual event, hosted by We Be Reading, was formerly known as Diana Wynne Jones March, a celebration of the late, great fantasy author. This year the focus has been expanded to include Terry Pratchett, another giant of the fantasy world who is greatly missed. I think that pairing these two writers is a terrific idea, and will give us double the fun as we share what we love about their works.
The suggested topic for today is “Share your books” — either showing off our book collection or what we intend to read this month, or both. I don’t actually own any books by Terry Pratchett (yet), but I’m delighted to share some pictures from my DWJ shelves. Since I discovered her more than 30 years ago, I’ve known I wanted to read and own everything she wrote, and I’m getting pretty close to completion. First off, here’s where it all started:
As I mentioned in this post, I first found Diana Wynne Jones through another favorite author, Robin McKinley. When in my local bookstore I found a paperback that had actually been blurbed by her, I had to have it — and so the obsession began.
I snapped up the Greenwillow hardcovers that were available — Witch Week, Archer’s Goon, Fire and Hemlock, Howl’s Moving Castle, A Tale of Time City — but some of the earlier works were hard to find in those pre-internet days. I still remember exactly where I was standing, along with how thrilled I was, when I found a copy of Witch’s Business (aka Wilkins’ Tooth) in the University branch of the Seattle Public Library. Later I did track down my own copy, or rather copies:
Yes, my obsession was such that I often ended up with multiple copies of the same book, in both hardcover and paperback, or UK and American editions. I scored quite a few UK paperbacks on a trip to England, but unfortunately I lost several of these in a book-lending accident when the recipient didn’t understand they were a loan and passed them on to someone else. I still have a few, like a spectacularly ugly edition of The Homeward Bounders:
In England I also bought the UK hardcover of Deep Secret, which turned out to be a good thing because for many years the only US edition available was a bowdlerized “YA” version. Thankfully, Tor finally fixed that with a reprint a couple of years ago.
When internet book buying kicked in things became much easier, and I was able to fill in most of the holes in my collection, like the Dalemark sequence (I much prefer the beautiful covers of these original Atheneum editions to the later ones made when the fourth book was published by Greenwillow):
It was still fun to hunt for treasure in real life, though. I found this copy of Power of Three in excellent condition at a library sale, and picked it up for a song:
On the other end of the cost spectrum is the limited edition of Everard’s Ride published by NESFA when DWJ was the guest of honor at their annual convention. Only 185 of these were signed, and I have one of them! I think it’s worth quite a bit now, but I’m not selling.
However they look on the outside, what I really treasure is what’s between the covers, the inimitably funny and vivid and inventive stories that have given me so many hours of reading delight. I’m looking forward to passing my collection on to my son, who’s the perfect age to start exploring the wonderful world of Diana Wynne Jones. I’d love to see your favorites — please share!
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
I’m the opposite of you. I have all the Pratchett but no Jones. What book of hers would you recommend as a first read?
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As a Pratchett fan, I think that Howl’s Moving Castle would be an excellent start, followed by the sequel Castle in the Air. Dark Lord of Derkholm/Year of the Griffin could also work for you (Dark Lord is not one of my personal favorites, but there are those who find it hilarious). I myself started with Charmed Life, the first Chrestomanci book, and that series is many readers’ entry point. Archer’s Goon, The Homeward Bounders, and Dogsbody are excellent standalones. Sorry if that gives too many choices, but it’s hard to pick one!
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Terry Pratchett is simply amazing, hopefully you’ll get to try some of his work this month 🙂
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Oh, I’ve enjoyed many of Sir Terry’s books, only I’ve gotten them all from the library so far. I haven’t started collecting him yet!
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Lovely collection! As I didn’t start reading Diana until a few years ago when I went searching for whose brilliant mind the original story of Howl’s Moving Castle came from, all of my copies are newer editions. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have multiples already though. They always get me with the newer versions with introductions from some of my favorite authors. 😛
Happy reading this month! I can’t wait to see what all you get to. I started with Witch’s Business and I’m already loving it on reread. I had forgotten some of her faux-colorful language in it!
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I’m looking forward to Witch’s Business — I think it will be a good complement to Equal Rites. I also can’t wait to see what everybody else picks up.
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I adore Terry Pratchett but sadly I haven’t read anything by Diana Wynne Jones. Reading your thoughts on your collection makes me want to read her books even more 🙂
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I hope this month many more people will get hooked on DWJ!
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As you know I’m just getting into Sir Terry’s work, so I’ll just show a photo of DWJ’s books on one of my shelves instead …
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I do like those new UK paperbacks. Time to start another phase of collecting…
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OH MY GOSH it’s March. I was going to pre-write posts!
Lately my kids have been using my computer a lot for their schoolwork. I can hardly get near it these days. Thus the radio silence and the fact that I didn’t notice it was already March. I’d better get home and get posting!
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Indeed you should!
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A latecomer to Pratchett, I can only share my shelf of DWJ titles, a collection almost but not quite complete!
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I own almost all of the Pratchett books, but not quite as many Jones. I love both, though! I hope you read lots of great things this month. 🙂
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They’ve both given us so many wonderful books to love — it’s going to be such fun to share them this month.
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What a lovely collection, and you’ve got a copy of Everard’s Ride! I have that same copy of Homeward Bounders as you. The UK in the 1980s specialised in hideous covers, but I’ve grown quite fond of them.
I’ve never read any Terry Pratchett and nothing like all of DWJ’s oeuvre, so am looking forward to reading your thoughts on both of them this month.
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I’m also looking forward to what everyone comes up with, especially more bad cover art. 🙂
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I loved seeing your collection of DWJ books! While I haven’t collected her books (nor read many of them yet, since I only discovered her since I started blogging), I have my own treasured collections that, like yours, sometimes include more than one edition of the same book. And coincidentally, my daughter just gave me her mass-market edition of Fire and Hemlock, because she found a trade edition. (Now if I can just manage the itty-bitty print…)
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It would be good to have a paperback edition of Fire and Hemlock — I used to have one with a decent cover, but it was among the ones I lost. I really wish someone would do a lovely special edition, though. Are there truly not enough of us fans to make it worthwhile?
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She seems to have a very loyal following, but other than Howl’s Moving Castle and maybe the Chrestomancy books, not necessarily a huge one.
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