8. Mort by Terry Pratchett

Mort is an awkward young man who bungles everything he attempts. When his father decides to send him off to be an apprentice, he gets only one offer - from the Grim Reaper himself. It seems like a good job to Mort: free room and board and a secure position in a business that will never run out of clientele. He doesn't even need to die to take the job. Soon Mort is doing some of the reaping himself and he even seems to be gaining maturity, self-confidence, and the ability to walk through walls. He falls in love. But can he manage to help Death harvest souls without making a complete mess of things? Review by Eileen Rieback on Amazon.com

This is the fourth published Discworld book.  I've read one and two; which should be read in order; but Mort is works well as a stand-alone book, even if some characters pop up in the other books.  Mort may be the main character, but Death adds all the flavor and humor to the story.  After a brief training period, Death leaves Mort on his own and proceeds to sample mortal life.  The segment describing Death as a short-order cook is positively hilarious.    I am totally in awe of Pratchett's imagination and his gift to bring humor to these impossible situations.  My first Pratchett book was Making Money, one of his last publications, and still one of my favorites.  Granted I've only read six and completely out of order, but it doesn't seem to matter.  They are all hugely entertaining.  So if you can read the books in some semblance of order, which is a little hard to determine if you don't have a handy chart like the one Booklogged made for me, by all means do so.  But you can hardly go wrong just grabbing one and enjoying the Discworld experience. 
Rating:  4.75
I own twenty-three of the 38+ books in this series.  I find the covers on the ones published in the US to be quite bland so, whenever possible, I try to mooch one from overseas.  They have much more scope for the imagination.

CATCHING UP CHALLENGE