Hundreds of free copies of Terry Pratchett’s comic fantasy Guards! Guards! have already been handed out and read as part of City Reads 2013.

Readers including The Guide’s Duncan Hall picked up copies at Brunswick Festival and have devoured the story featuring a drunken city guard, an orang-utan librarian and a six-foot “dwarf”.

Pratchett, who ranks among the nation’s most important living authors (and most pinched, according to WHSmith), is over-the-moon to take on the title after Brightonian Bethan Roberts had the honour in 2012. “I’m very glad Guards! Guards! is going to be your City Read,” he says. “I hope you have fun with it. I certainly did.”

Pratchett has legions of readers of all ages. His best-selling fantasy series, Discworld, with 39 novels, has sold more than 70 million copies. Guards! Guards! is the eighth in the series.

As City Reads enters its eighth year in Brighton, the giant book group’s aim to get people reading and spark discussion about books is arguably its most accessible.

“Once you get kids to read, I don’t believe you actually need to teach them very much more,” says the author, who once worked in a library.

Laura Lockington, from City Reads, says organising the event is like “planning the biggest book group ever”.

“Every year we plan and schedule a whole raft of events taking the theme from that chosen book. We are very excited to have with us this year perhaps the best-loved author in the UK.”

Events for everyone

An enormous dragon will be in Jubilee Library for Scales And Terrifying Tales. Families are invited to add their tales to the dragon’s tail (Saturday, September 14, 11am to 4pm, free).

Pop-Up Book Groups, with complimentary drinks and conversation, will give readers a chance to share their thoughts at libraries across the city (Thursday, September 19, at The Grange, Rottingdean, 5pm; Saturday, September 21, at Moulsecoomb Library, 11am; and Saturday, September 28, at Hangleton Library, 11am).

For one night only there will be a stage adaptation of Guards! Guards! by Stephen Briggs, with live music and food as well as audience participation (tonight, Brighton And Hove Food Festival Marquee, Hove Lawns, 7pm, £24 with supper, 01273 709709).

To hear the main man talking about his work visit Brighton Dome. Friends will join Pratchett for a conversation about his life’s work – and how he’s managing to write, despite the onset of Alzheimer’s (Sunday, September 29, £15, 2pm, 01273 709709).

Guards! Guards! by Duncan Hall

With the city of Ankh-Morpork home to approved guilds of assassins and thieves, the need for a Night Watch has lessened considerably – with its captain Sam Vimes generally to be found drunkenly lying face-down in the gutter.

But when the Unique And Supreme Lodge Of The Elucidated Brethren Of The Ebon Night summon up a fierce fire-breathing dragon, it falls to Vimes and his ragtag bunch of men – including over-enthusiastic new recruit, the six-foot “dwarf” Carrot Ironfoundersson – to bring peace back to the city.

Along the way they pull off some million-to-one chance feats of daring and recruit both the aristocratic dragon-breeder Lady Sybil Ramkin and the city’s orang-utan librarian – who gets worked up into a murderous frenzy by unreturned books and being called a monkey.

Anyone who has read Pratchett’s work before will know his tongue-in-cheek approach to fantasy.

This is not some po-faced Tolkien world. Instead, Ankh-Morpork contains petty bureaucracy, incompetence aplenty and some beautiful wordplay, making Guards! Guards! a funny and addictive read for adults and teenagers alike.