As long as I can remember my mom has read mystery novels, not exclusively, but predominantly. When she tells me why it seems to me that I might also enjoy reading them. However, whenever I wander into the Mystery section of the library whatever book catches my eye invariably says something like “A Beth Cooper Mystery!”.
I wish there was a website where you could find out A) Whether you need to have read previous Beth Cooper mysteries to enjoy the latest one, and B) what the correct order is if the answer to A is yes. The “Also by this author” list isn’t always in chronological order, which makes no sense to me. It seems too much like work to track all that information down. As a result I haven’t read very many mysteries. Are those Sue Grafton Alphabet books worth reading? Do I have to start at A? One would sort of hope her work has improved over time. What about Janet Evanovich or James Patterson and those numbered series?
How do you feel when a book catches your attention and you discover it’s part of a series. Read it anyway? Start the series? Or skip it and rewatch Rescue Me on Netflix?
I try and start the series. Many of them you can read as stand alone books, but there are still references to past actions, kind of like in-jokes.
I recently started reading the Harry Dresden series. Because some of the characters appear in one book, not the next, then show up again later, it’s better to read them in order but isn’t absolutely necessary.
In my experience, mystery novels from a series are usually self contained stories, and you can read and enjoy them singly, or out of order, perfectly well. All it usually means is that the author reuses some of the same characters (usually the detective and associates), but they will be reintroduced to the reader in each novel.
Fantasy series are probably different. They are often a single connected story strung over several volumes, and really need to be started from the beginning and read to the end (or until you are sick of them).
I tend to agree with njtt. I started reading Marcia Muller’s Sharyn McCone novels and Kate Wilhelm’s Barbara Holloway novels fairly late in their runs and I didn’t have any problems understanding them. (I highly recommend both of those series, Gwendee.) Raymond Chandler’s novels are the same. Barring a reference in one to a shooting that occurred in a novella (itself a minor reference), they are self-contained. In Sue Grafton’s alphabet novels, Kinsey Millhone will occasionally refer to an event that occurred in a previous novel, but those references won’t stop you from understanding what’s going on in the current novel.
I love series because I read too fast, except if the author is only partway through writing it and it’s the story-arc kind and I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS DAMMIT GET THAT THING PUBLISHED ALREADY. But Wikipedia is indispensable for answering your questions.
Reading mysteries out of order, I wouldn’t be so concerned about the current story suffering, but about it spoiling previous stories that I might want to go back and read. How often is that an issue?
Visit Fantastic Fiction where you can search for authors and find lists of all their books/series in order. Lists of upcoming books are also available.
I think that it should be federal law that all booksellers be required to stock book #1 of any multi-book series if other subsequent books are on the shelves. Auditable, trackable, with undercover agents authorized to flog any bookstore personnel upon discovering a non-compliance.
I hate those lists at the front of a book that aren’t in chronological order! Or if they are, then they omit the book you’re holding in your hand, so that you can’t tell where it fits in the series.
Goodreads.com is a great resource for series lists. For instance, here’s the link to the first Janet Evanovich book, One For the Money. Beside the book’s title is a link to a list for the whole series, including omnibus editions.
Evanovich is easy order-wise, as she numbers her titles - she’s currently up to “Smokin’ Seventeen” - start with one and zip through - her main character, Stephanie Plum, is a fun “everywoman” and the characters are colorful with many LOL moments - I’ve found the stories to become a bit repetitive and predictable, after a while, but the love triangle is fun, and if you want a quick, fluffy “gives your brain something to chew on with -0- nutritional value” this is a great series for that. Fun, but doesn’t stick.
Also, for finding book orders, I usually hunt up the author’s website, OR you can look on Amazon or BN.com for the author’s books, then sort by publication year. That’s an easy trick for Which One is First.
Generally speaking you want to start at the beginning because a lot of these series start to suck balls eventually. Case in point: Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books are awesome! Until they are absolutely, definitely not. Read the first 3.
I don’t ever knowingly read book #2 or later in a series before book #1. If I can find #1 and all prior books, I’ll read that/those first. If I can’t, well, I’m not going to read the eye-catching book at all.
This is my experience as well, though of course there are exceptions. For example, in Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, there’s a three-book stretch that should really be read in sequence: The Widening Gyre, Valediction, and A Catskill Eagle. The last of those is actually the first Spenser novel I read, and though I enjoyed it, the overall story made a lot more sense when I backed up and read the other two. Also, Early Autumn informs Pastime so much that they’re also best read in sequence; and of course there’s the terribly depressing April Kyle trilogy of Ceremony, Taming a Sea-Horse, and Hundred-Dollar Baby.
One thing I don’t like is tightly-connected series without a definite plan. It’s one thing to have twenty books that are connected only by characters; it’s another to try to stretch a plot or quest over that long.
When they do not bother to do that (as is very often the case) it is pretty good evidence that neither the author nor the publisher think it matters a damn what order you read them in. You are going to like it just as much, and be just as likely to buy another in the series, whichever one you start with and whichever order you go in.
When order does matter (as is often the case in fantasy),it is usually made explicit in the title or subtitle: (XXXX: Being the Fifteenth of the Chronicles of Zzyzx).