Wintersmith

When witch-in-training Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts the Dance of the Seasons and awakens the interest of the elemental spirit of Winter, she requires the help of the six-inch-high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men to put the seasons aright.

'FOR THE ENEMY IS NOT TROLL, NOR IS IT DWARF, BUT IT IS THE BALEFUL, THE MALIGN, THE COWARDLY, THE VESSELS OF HATRED, THOSE WHO DO A BAD THING AND CALL IT GOOD ...' In the city of Ankh-Morpork, tension is rising between dwarf and troll communities. A dwarven fanatic has been stoking the flames of an old hatred born of the Battle of Koom Valley -an ancient war between the races that neither side has quite got over. When the dwarf is murdered, with a troll the only witness, Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch must solve the case before history repeats itself. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war drums sounding, Vimes must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. But darkness is following him ... And at six o'clock every day he must go home to read a bedtime story to his son. There are some things you have to do. 'Consistently funny, consistently clever and consistently surprising in its twists and turns' SFX Thud! is the seventh book in the City Watch series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order.

'Crivens!' Tiffany Aching put one foot wrong, made just one little mistake . . . And now the spirit of winter is in love with her. He gives her roses and icebergs and showers her with snowflakes, which is tough when you're thirteen, but also just a little bit . . . cool. And if Tiffany doesn't work out how to deal with him, there will never be another springtime . . . Crackling with energy and humour, Wintersmith is the third tale in a sequence about Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men - the Nac Mac Feegles who are determined to help Tiffany, whether she wants it or not. 'An extraordinary achievement'Books for Keeps 'A characteristically entertaining mix'Sunday Times 'One of the best and one of the funniest English authors alive' Independent

Catch Me If You Can meets Patricia Highsmith in this “stylish” (New York Times Book Review) page-turner of greed and obsession, survival and self-invention that is a piercing character study of one unforgettable female con artist. At the end of the 1990s, with the art market finally recovered from its disastrous collapse, Miss Rebecca Farwell has made a killing at Christie’s in New York City, selling a portion of her extraordinary art collection for a rumored 900 percent profit. Dressed in couture YSL, drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she’s known, is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she’s a heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can make. But a thousand miles from the Big Apple, in the small town of Pierson, Illinois, Miss Farwell is someone else entirely—a quiet single woman known as Becky who still lives in her family’s farmhouse, wears sensible shoes, and works tirelessly as the town’s treasurer and controller. No one understands the ins and outs of Pierson’s accounts better than Becky; she’s the last one in the office every night, crunching the numbers. Somehow, her neighbors marvel, she always finds a way to get the struggling town just a little more money. What Pierson doesn’t see—and can never discover—is that much of that money is shifted into a separate account that she controls, “borrowed” funds used to finance her art habit. Though she quietly repays Pierson when she can, the business of art is cutthroat and unpredictable. But as Reba Farwell’s deals get bigger and bigger, Becky Farwell’s debt to Pierson spirals out of control. How long can the talented Miss Farwell continue to pull off her double life?

This collection includes all four Tiffany Aching novels in Terry Pratchett's beloved and bestselling Discworld series. The Wee Free Men: Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men. Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself. . . . A Hat Full of Sky: Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic—not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this! What Tiffany doesn't know is that an insidious, disembodied creature is pursuing her. In the end, it will take all of Tiffany's inner strength to save herself ... if it can be done at all. Wintersmith: When the Spirit of Winter takes a fancy to Tiffany Aching, he wants her to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. It will take the young witch's skill and cunning, as well as help from the legendary Granny Weatherwax and the irrepressible Wee Free Men, to survive until Spring. Because if Tiffany doesn't make it to Spring—Spring won't come. I Shall Wear Midnight: As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone—or something—is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root. Aided by the tiny-but-tough Wee Free Men, Tiffany faces a dire challenge, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her. . . .

Includes: public acts, local and private acts.

"What Smith has achieved in her cycle so far is exactly what we need artists to do in disorienting times: make sense of events, console us, show us how we got here, help us believe that we will find our way through. Often, that's what we lean on the classics for, finding answers in metaphor. But in "Winter," as in "Autumn," Smith gives us a potent, necessary source of sustenance that speaks directly to our age." - The Boston Globe “There are few writers on the world stage who are producing fiction this offbeat and alluring.” – The New York Times The dazzling second novel in Ali Smith's essential Seasonal Quartet--from the Baileys Prize-winning, Man Booker-shortlisted author of Autumn and How to be both Shortlisted for the 2018 Orwell Prize for Political Writing Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. And now Art's mother is seeing things. Come to think of it, Art's seeing things himself. When four people, strangers and family, converge on a 15 bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone? Winter. It makes things visible. In Ali Smith's Winter, life-force matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to her sensational Autumn, Smith's shapeshifting novel casts a warm, wise, merry and uncompromising eye over a post-truth era in a story rooted in history and memory and with a taproot deep in the evergreens, art and love.

This collection includes all five Tiffany Aching novels in Terry Pratchett's beloved and bestselling Discworld series, including the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown. The Wee Free Men: Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men. A Hat Full of Sky: Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic. She expects spells and magic—not chores and ill-tempered nanny goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this! Indeed, there is. . . . Wintersmith: When the Spirit of Winter takes a fancy to Tiffany Aching, he wants her to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. It will take the young witch's skill and cunning, as well as help from the legendary Granny Weatherwax and the irrepressible Wee Free Men, to survive until Spring. I Shall Wear Midnight: As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone—or something—is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her. . . . The Shepherd's Crown: Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad. There will be a reckoning. . . .