Wherein We Learn About Fred and Other Tales.

Pratchett, Terry.  A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction.  New York: Doubleday, 2014.
        ISBN: 978-0-385-538305

Be forewarned, this is not a collection of Discworld stories, although, that series is frequently mentioned between these covers.   Rather this tome is a collection of nonfiction essays, speeches,  and assorted odds and ends that Terry Pratchett wrote between 1963 and 2011.

In A Slip of the Keyboard, Terry Pratchett has deliberately provided a look into his mind and habits via this entertaining and revealing book. In four sections (A Scribbling Intruder/A Twit and a Dreamer/Days of Rage/And Finally...) Pratchett and company have amassed an eclectic collection of short pieces.  Here you can read short pieces such as "Thought Progress", "Why Gandalf Never Married", or "How to Be a Professional Boxer".  Then, there is "Straight From the Heart, via the Groin",  written in 2004, wherein we learn about "Fred" the ubiquitous worker at a nuclear plant who causes mayhem unwittingly.  You can read some of his early newspaper stories ("The King and I, or How the Bottom Has Dropped Out of the Wise Man Business" for example) or about his collection of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable ("Brewer's Boy").  But on of my favorite pieces is "Roots of Fantasy"  which deals with how a lowly garden gnome statue caused the shutdown of a nuclear power plant (also includes the engineers' idea that an abandoned nuclear power plant would make a nifty "cursed tomb").  In the last quarter of the book (Days of Rage), Terry Pratchett has placed articles on his reaction to having Alzheimer's, the National Health System, right to die, orangutans, and schooling.

Throughout the book, the reader gets to peak behind the authorial mask of the creator of Discworld, go book touring with him  and generally hang out with an interesting person.  Recommended for all readers (whether you are a fan already or not).