Maskerade

Just read Maskerade again for what, the 4th time? It has all the ingredients to be the perfect Pratchett witch book. And it's darned close. Granny Weatherwax & Nanny Ogg are without a maiden for the witchy three. It's assumed that Agnes Nitt (Perdita X Dream), a large girl with a brain, killer voice, and a tendency to say "poot" will be the third. But Agnes goes away to Ankh-Morpork to sing in the opera. Needless to say, Granny & Nanny end up at the Opera House as well, in order to save pretty much everyone. Ok, a few people die. Much fun is had with operatic conventions and the Phantom of the Opera tale. In the end the fat lady sings, or rather, screams. Operatically.

Scattered throughout are some wonderful witchy words to live by.
   "She closed her eyes.
   This was when you started being a witch. It wasn't when you did headology on daft old men, or mixed up medicines, or stuck up for yourself, or knew one herb from another.
   It was when you opened your mind to the world and carefully examined everything it picked up." 
(pp. 146-7)

And when Agnes (Perdita) wishes to escape her fate:
"I have no intention of becoming a witch, thank you very much!"
"Now, don't go getting upset just because you know it's going to happen. A witch you're going to be because a witch you are, and if you turn your back on him now then I don't know what's going to happen to Walter Plinge." (p. 294)

And then there is this description, which is not particularly witchy, but I can't resist putting it in. When Granny & Nanny need a male escort, they sometimes transform Greebo, Nanny's tomcat, into a man. Suuuuuch a man:
"Greebo fully clothed still managed to communicate the nakedness beneath. The insouciant mustache, the long sideburns and the tousled black hair combined with the well-developed muscles to give the impression of the more louche kind of buccaneer or a romantic poet who'd given up the opium and tried red meat instead. He had a scar running across his face, and a black patch now where it crossed his eye. When he smiled, he exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness. He could swagger while asleep. Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room."

Is it any wonder I love this writer? Maskerade is from 1995, and in it Nanny Ogg writes The Joye of Snackes--guess what that parodies? It was made into a real cookbook. And I have it. Perhaps I'll try a few recipes and report back. :)