I dove blindly into the Discworld series with Going Postal, Book #33 of 40 (as of June 2015). I was a little concerned about not starting at the beginning, but since author Terry Pratchett himself recommended against starting with Book #1, and since several fans said that this relatively highly-rated installment was as good a place as any, I took the plunge.

From what I gather, Discworld is a medieval fantasy world with creatures like golems (giant, indestructible gingerbread men with eyes of fire), nymphs, trolls, dragons,