Unseen Academicals

Terry Pratchett's latest, Unseen Academicals, is a great read on the Kindle, or even, I'd imagine, in old-fashioned book form.  It takes place, of course, in Ankh-Morpork, the chief city of Discworld.  If you haven't read Terry Pratchett and don't know what Discworld is, it is an alternative world balanced on the back of a turtle where science really is magic, or perhaps the other way around.  It is, of course, our world seen through a funhouse mirror.

In this installment of the chaos that is Discworld--and by the way, you can pretty much jump in anywhere--the wizards of Unseen University find out that in order to maintain an extremely important bequest, which finances their meals and elaborate between-meal snacks, they have to field a football (that is, soccer to us Americans) team.  Since the wizards' previous exercise mainly involved running to wherever the food was to be served, this challenge of course presents a problem.  Combine this plot with a touching love story and a couple of other subplots, including one where self-knowledge gained leads to a real transformation, along with Pratchett's sharp sense of humor and ear for the absurd, and you have a winner.  I've read several of the Discworld series, and in my opinion this is one of the more successful stories.  $14.95 on Kindle.