Sunday, January 22, 2017

Announcing: #MarchMagics and #DWJMarch, 2017 Edition

On my post about Discworldathon, Lory and I were going back and forth in the comments about which Pratchett books we could focus on for this year's March Magics event. She suggested the Death books as nobody else on the schedule had chosen them and then, all of a sudden, I had a super fun idea!

(Sidenote: If you've somehow missed this event I host annually, DWJ March began in March 2012 as a celebration of Diana Wynne Jones and last year I added Terry Pratchett as he had passed the year before. I changed the name to March Magics but a few of us didn't want to let go of the DWJ March name so now it kind of has two names. I guess this is the 6th year of the event!)

I've wanted to focus DWJ March on Chrestomanci for a while and there are four main books and they happen to be about nine-lived enchanters. When paired with four of the five DEATH books (I'm skipping Hogfather since it will have its own celebration in December), we end up with ...

A Matter of Lives and DEATH


(My alternate event name was The Lives and DEATH Brigade ... Anyone #teamlogan out there?)

To give all of you enough time to dust off personal copies, shop, or get your library holds in on all eight books, here's the basic schedule:

Week 1: Charmed Life and Mort
Week 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant and Reaper Man
Week 3: Conrad's Fate and Soul Music
Week 4: The Pinhoe Egg and The Thief of Time

I'll post the actual dates for each book around the middle of February. Also, I would love to have guest posters to share thoughts, come up with discussion questions, or whatever else you think would be fun to do with any of these books. If you're interested in being in charge of one or more of these books, let me know in the comments or send me an email.

Are you excited about the theme this year? Will you try and read all eight books? How many will be rereads? (Seven of the eight will be rereads for me and I'm so excited!)

Feeling the magic building up,
K

17 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun! I must see what ones I have from this list!

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    1. Fantastic! I actually need to get copies of the Death books because last time I borrowed them from the library.

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  2. Truly inspired idea, love it! I might be interested to do something on Thief of Time, I just reread it and it's one of my favorite Discworld books.

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    1. Well, you helped! Thank you! I'll ping you in a couple of weeks about Thief of Time. :)

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    2. Yay! Are you skipping Witch Week and Magicians of Caprona because they don't have much Chrestomanci in them? I guess that makes sense. But I am reading Witch Week to my son right now and am reminded all over again how brilliant it is. And rather timely.

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    3. Yes, since I'm already doing two books a week and since I was focusing on the whole nine-lives thing, I wanted to use the books that show current and future Chrestomancis (and I guess the town next door!). I do love WW and MoC though. :)

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  3. Fantiastic! I love the theme and we'll have a great time.

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    1. I knew it was a good idea when I couldn't wait to start reading all of the books. :) Glad you're joining me again!

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  4. Hurray! I've been waiting to hear the news for March Magics this year, so I'm so excited! :D (Love the wordplay. ;)) I've actually been re-reading all the Chrestomanci books already recently, but I'll be sure to save The Pinhoe Egg for the read-along. ;) I think my library has those Pratchetts so we'll see if I can make a trip to join in! Regardless, looking forward to the DWJ (and Pratchett) fun! Can't wait! :)

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    1. Picking the Chrestomanci books was chancy since we all reread them all of the time but luckily we're never opposed to talking about them anyway! :)

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  5. Exciting. :) My daughter and I recently finished a Chrestomanci binge, so they will all be fresh in my mind. And even though (*whispers shamefully* I am not a Pratchett's fan - I just can't get into them despite trying), Death is my favourite of his characters, so maybe I will try to give him another go. Thanks for organising this. I can't wait!

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  6. Yayyyy this is going to be awesome! Let me have a think and see if I have anything intelligent to say about any of those books (as opposed to just, like, screeching), and maybe I can do some guest-posting duties. :)

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    1. Well, if it's not you (and others) it will just be me screeching about everything. ;)

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  7. Ooh, Kristen, I'd like to do this too! I've read and reviewed all of the Chrestomanci books, but of the Pratchett titles I've only tackled Mort, so March looks like a good time to polish off the other three titles! May I use your link pic please? :)

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    1. Absolutely! The image is for everyone to use. I'm so glad you'll be joining on the Death series. Only one of them is new to me but it's been so long on the others that I don't remember them well.

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    2. Thanks, Kristen! Posted today on my blog about March Magics (https://calmgrove.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/dwj2017/) with links to those Chrestomanci and Mort reviews, in case anyone's interested . . . :)

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