This Weeks Question is:
"If you find a book that looks interesting but is part of a series, do you always start with the first title?"
My Answer: Well, usually I do. Actually 99.9% of the time I do! There has been only one occurrence where I did read out of order and that was with the Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. I read book 4 and 5 ('The Grey King'/'Silver on the Tree') first. I was just really drawn to cover and blurb of 'The Grey King'. I'm glad to have started out of order with it, however, because the last two books are the best. :-)
At the bookstore, I always recommend that customers read book series in order. It's quite a common question, believe it or not! Even with series that are numbered, further emphasizing that you should read them in order!!!
I had a woman buying books for a young girl the other day and she was looking for suggestions. I suggested the 'Emily Windsnap' series and for some reason, even though she wasn't sure if the girl had read the first book, she bought the third! I really tried to get her to buy the first one, because honestly, I had (and still have) no idea why she bought the third book in the series when she really does need to read the first one at least to understand the series... But, as you in retail know, the customer is *always* right.
7 comments:
Happy hopping, Brooke! I try my best to read the series in order, though I believe that good books in a series should be able to stand alone :)
I can dive right into the middle of a book series if the series' story
doesn't run chronologically.
That is to say, if each novel in a series is a stand-alone story (like Lee
Child's Reacher novels) then I don't feel the need to start with book one.
On the other hand, a series of books (like Richard Hatch's Battlestar
Galactica novels) can't be read out of sequence since each new book builds
upon the story of the previous entry in the series.
Happy Book Blogger Hop Friday!
Howard Sherman
http://www.howardsherman.net
I get drawn in by a great cover, too, but then I get flustered when I find out it's a later book in a series. I suppose I COULD just start with that book, but I always end up going back to the first book and reading them in order.
LOL. Who knows what people are thinking?? I ALWAYS read books in a series in order. It's something I'm quite anal about, actually.
I used to get that question a lot too, when I worked in a bookstore. I remember coming up with series that were "okay" to read out of order. Things like Animorphs, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Cam Jansen, Horrible Harry Boxcar Children, Flower Fairies. Those series do not seem to have a lot of forward plot movement necessarily. They're like serials or sitcoms, really, where they just go on and on and on and on, kind of resetting everything "back to normal" at the end of each book.
Hello fellow blogger! new follower to your page here. Just wanted to drop some *love* and say that you have a wonderful blog here! I'm new to blogging and would love if you could return the favor and follow my page! Happy Blogging!
how many times do you think i used the word blog?
pruesbookblog.blogspot.com
Thanks for dropping by my blog. I worked at a bookstore for a year and a half and never got asked that question (that I can remember). There were people who'd walk up with a novel not knowing it was a series and I'd be sure to show them the first novel. Sometimes these things are seriously not clear.
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