I re-read it recently and it was even better than I remember it being when I first read it as a teenager - I think because my extra life experience meant that I understood the themes of the novel more. Incredibly insightful social commentary.
Lastly, I think a really good shout out is Monstrous Regiment which is absolutely hilarious, especially if you don't know the characters and just incredibly wholesome.
Also a shout out for underrated options; Soul Music (great tag line, lovely observational comedy) and Carpe Jugulum (some fan favourite characters, but also one of my fav bit-part characters - Lacrimosa)
Without too much of a spoiler, but at the point whenever, uh, the physics and time gets weird, I was dying laughing about the interactions between the pyramid building brothers.
I also read it during the week my son was born this year and generally have some really positive associations with it :)
Is obviously also a reference to Jelly Babies - the rubbery sweets that were preferred by the fourth Doctor Who.
I have to say that Pyramids has always been one of my favourites, it doesn't have the depth of Nightwatch due to less history with the characters, nor does it have the biting satire of Small Gods, but as standalone "typical Discworld" novel it is outstanding.
I should re-read it again soon. Having moved countries I didn't transport all my books, but once I arrived here I made damn sure that I bought the complete set again. They're great comfort-reads.
For me the line that always sticks in my memory involves Pteppic getting dressed "and then he turned and slowly fell over". (I love the "Ptraci" lines too. Always paying off to be slightly foreign.)
Soul Music is indeed excellent.
As such, I'd recommend Going Postal as the entry point for the uninitiated.
Also, it had Tim Curry.
But the discworld doesn't actually need all that much introduction - each book is pretty self-sufficient but learning more about the characters just adds more to when they show up as Cameos (except, I'd point out, Monstrous Regiment, where not knowing who the "Butcher of Ankh Morpork" is actually adds to the story)
To balance out this non-progressive take, Vimes' character arc is "what if a good cop made cops good?", which probably wouldn't work in real life.
That was my introduction, when it came out, but I recommend Hogfather to most as it captures the wide breadth of his writing. There's a lot of great comedy in it, but also some serious and scary moments.
Partly (mostly?) for the spectacle of me trying to read a Nac Mac Feegle accent :)
FWIW I only recently learned that "crivens" is maybe a real expression, a much-shortened form of "Christ defend us". In the same way as "God blind me" reduces to "blimey"...
But it's an easy and quick decision / try: Discworld to me is a bit like Hitchhikers guide to galaxy, where I tell people to just read the first page - either you'll be laughing and hooked, or go "huh?"; either way it's not one of those books where you need to read 27 chapters and get to know characters etc before you make up your mind. It's a specific type of humour that not everybody appreciates, but those who do appreciate it rather quickly.
Then again my first Discworld novel was Making Money and I loved it even without context (and the “Industrial Revolution” sub-series starting with moving pictures remains my favorite to this day), so you could probably just start at Sourcery and go from there anyway.
His take on Death often fills the role of the outsider, trying to understand us and by doing so exposing our oddities, much like Data in Trek and other such characters. Possibly that is why the books that feature him heavily are some of my favourites.
It’s definitely one of the most Pratchett-y but not necessarily one I would recommend to read first.
Incidentally, I think the Wyrd Sisters cartoon is the most successful Discworld adaptation (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyrd_Sisters_(TV_series)). I must admit, I've not tried the recent series based (very loosely it seems) on Guards! Guards! I don't what to be That Fan who says they got everything wrong but...
I hesitate to use the word "unwatchable", but this series comes close. It is both an awful adaptation of the Discworld universe—and awful even otherwise.
1. Points off if you didn't mentally read it as tay-AH-tim.
It was the bit about a million-to-one chance
It will leave scars...
I certainly wouldn't recommend it as an introduction to Pratchett but it is quite Pratchett adjacent.
Good Omens was awesome, though. I was spoiled by that. True labor of love.
I probably will give it another go, sometime. I like most of the cast.
I know the plot was a rather confused mismatch of several different Watch books - especially Thud! (The Summoning Dark), Night's Watch (The Carver plot line), Guards Guards! (The dragon summoning) along with several smaller references to other novels. But I do think it was rather coherent as long as you realized it wasn't following the books at all.
i love Small Gods as a starter novel because it is pretty self contained.