Thirty-seven books and counting... that is some considerable feat, especially when they invariably end up on the bestsellers list. This time the spotlight focuses on the Unseen University, which has just discovered that a generous endowment will revert to another recipient unless they get up a team and play football. But surely foot-the-ball is just the game of the streets and of the rabble? More a battle than a game and not something a wizard would stoop to engage in? But Lord Vetinari has considerably more up his sleeve than just his arm, and this would appear to include the mysterious Mr. Nutt, arrived lately from Far Überwald and destined to be more than a humble candle dribbler.

We’ve had banks, police, the post office... now it is the turn of The Beautiful Game. Pratchett gets under the skin of what it is all about: the crowd being one entity, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging to something and the magic moment when it all comes together. It does all come together in the end, but this is not a short book and there is not quite enough material to pack the pages as they ought to be packed. This having been said and gotten out of the way, there is plenty to enjoy here in the shape of two star turns by Mr. Nutt and Vetinari, plenty of homespun philosophy to ponder on, and lots of humor. Pratchett excels at the witty one-liner and getting the essence of why something is funny in a nutshell, which he does here with his usual verve and gusto. This is not his strongest book, nor his weakest (somewhere in the middle I would put it), but longtime fans will enjoy meeting up with well-loved characters and meeting some interesting new ones.