Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Book series

It's been a while since I've managed to do a Tuesday Thingers question, so let's give this one a try: Our hostess Marie, of Boston Bibliophile, asks, "Do you collect any series? Do you read series books? Fantasy? Mystery? Science fiction? Religious? Other genre? Do you use the series feature in LT to help you find new books or figure out what you might be missing from a series?"

I'm a big fan of series in kids' books, because once my kids and I find something all three of us enjoyed reading together, we love knowing that there are several more books where that came from. We plowed our way through the Harry Potter series, and have also enjoyed the first part of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, all of Angie Sage's Septimus Heap books. It feels like ages ago that we were reading the Magic Treehouse books together, and there were several other series that we relied on back in those days. Oh, and I can't forget the Little House books--we read them all in a row.

For adult books, I'll let my track record speak for itself: I started the Outlander series at a friend's recommendation, enjoyed the first two books. Smack in the middle of book 3, I was done. I read a few Mitford books, liked them, but after 2-3 I was ready to move on to other things. And after I finished Twilight, I decided to pretend it was a stand-alone book.

Maybe I just haven't found the right series for me. How about you, do you have a favorite series?

6 comments:

  1. My favorite series are probably mysteries. I've never used the series feature on LT, but plan on checking it out.

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  2. I'm a big fan of series, but it's not uncommon for me to feel like every series has at least one book that's a lull. However, I like closure in a series, and very seldom will I abandon a series mid-series.

    Outlander -- The middle of the series was a lull for me, but I'm glad I perservered because I love where the series is right now, and I'm looking forward to the next book (and the one after it, which will likely be the end of the series).

    The Bronze Horseman -- Loved the first and third books, but the middle book was the lull for me. It was a heartbreaking series at times, but I loved it.

    Twilight -- I've read all three books, and found the second book to be the one I enjoyed the most. I do wish the author had taken a different path with the third book, but I do see potential in an interesting storyline developing in the fourth book and will be curious to see how it plays out (assuming that fourth book ever gets published). This might've been a more interesting series if it'd not been geared towards the young adult market.

    Stephanie Plum series -- Rather predictable at this point in the series, but I never fail to laugh outloud (frequently!!) while reading these books. I think I know how the series will wrap up, but I would love to be surprised and have it go in a totally different direction.

    Harry Potter series -- I'm so glad the books in this series got meatier as the series went along. My son and I almost always have one of the audio books on-hand, and I often find myself commenting aloud on how fantastically-written these books are -- so many little details that tie from book to book. Not to mention the originality -- Quidditch, anyone?!?!

    Golden Compass trilogy -- Loved this series. As with HP, I thought there were many interesting, original concepts.

    Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head. I haven't utilized Library Thing in years; maybe it's time for me to revisit it.

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  3. I forgot about *The Magic Treehouse* when I posted my list of kids' series we enjoy (but I remembered *The Magic Schoolbus*, go figure!)

    I'm not reading books from a series at the moment.

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  4. You've listed some great series! I've not read any of the Twilight books, although I'm hearing great things about them.

    I'm looking forward to starting some kid-friendly family series over the next few years as our son gets a little older. I have such fond memories of reading with my parents!

    :) wendi
    http://wendisbookcorner.blogspot.com

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  5. I share the mystery series illness. Give me a minute and I could create a very long list.
    But some of them...like Evanovich's Plum I have given up one at this point. same old...same old. And don't even get me started on Patricia Cornwell and the Scarpetta books..
    But I have found some nice new ones..funny, as I get older, I seem to like more serious, even rather gruesome ones.

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  6. I realized, while participating in a book discussion elsewhere today, there are already four books in the Twilight series. In my prior comment, I said there were three. Obviously two of the books meshed together in my memory, no?!?! My error bugged me, so now it's corrected ;-).

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