I’m curious to know the answer to this question because I noticed my own behavior has changed as I got older.
When I was younger, I used to read a series all in one go: after I finished the first book, if there was a second, I would grab that one, and so on and so forth.
Nowadays though, I don’t like doing that anymore. Even when I like book one, I will not pick up the second book of the series until after a long while. I still haven’t finished the Annihilation trilogy (2/3) or the Earthsea pentalogy (3/5) or the hatching trilogy (1/3), just to give some examples. And I like the books, mind you.
I feel that one reason for this change is that I don’t like to keep reading the same flavor of book again and again anymore. I like to shift things around, pick up a new genre, get a fresh perspective… and then, when I feel the longing, I grab the book from a series I was reading to see what’s going on there. It feels like getting in touch with an old friend, and remembering why you were such good friends in the first place.
So, what about you? What’s your style? Binge-reading the series or taking your sweet sweet time?
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Took me about a year to get through game of thrones
It truly depends on the series. I can only read one book at a time (my brain just can’t keep track of the plots if I’m reading more than one, it’s painful) so that makes things slower but if it’s a series I’m really loving, I’ll binge the entire thing in a few days. Some other series will be interesting at first but then grow more and more tedious for one reason or another. My latest series I read (Three Dark Crowns reread), I completed in a week. I highly recommend. ☺️
It depends. But yeah I usually don’t read an entire series at once, so read something else in-between entries.
I spread the series a little. Usually reading one or two books in between instalments, especially if its a long series. I don’t want all the books to blend into one lump. I even space out authors.
I always like to read at least one other book in between each book in a series.
I think that this is, at least partly, to do with the pressure on writers to try to do trilogies out of everything these days. A planned trilogy will have a story arc where there is a climax in each book as well as building towards a climax for the whole series. And, IDK, when I have just reached the climactic end of one book, diving straight into the “slow bit” in the next one just feels - anticlimactic, I guess. I suspect something that wasn’t originally planned to be a series or a trilogy may be different, but what do I know…
In practice, I tend to interleave two - sometimes three - series (or “universes”) at a time; When I finish a book in one series, I pick up the next book in the other series. I like to make systems :D Incidentally, I also tend to get bored if I read books in the same genre back to back so I tend to have series in different genres.
Right now, I am interleaving
- Salvation trilogy (SciFi, trilogy)
- Rivers of London (urban fantasy, series)
- The Saga of Recluce (high (?) fantasy, universe)
I prefer to read the books in a series as close together as possible, so that I don’t forget plot points.
I read more than one book at a time, my sweet spot is 2-4. If I want a change of style, I just grab one of the other books I’m currently reading.
Depends on the length of the series. I’m good for about 6-8 novels. Most lengthy series start fading after that, imo…if not sooner. But I also tend to filter out stories with more than 8 novels too.
But if everything is going good, I’ll read them one after another until the end.
I do ready every book from the sames series, but I don’t read as fast anymore. When i was younger, if i liked a book, I would stay up until 3 in the morning or until i fell asleep bc i couldn’t put the book down. Now I just read until 11pm and then go to sleep and start reading again the next evening.
I read very similar to what you describe you do. I also used to inhale book series as a teenager but nowadays like to space them out more. I mostly do this as I otherwise blend books together in my head, and I can’t remember which I liked more or less. I’ll very rarely continue reading the next book in a series right away. Even if I’m loving the series.
depends on series, length of the books and length of the series. if its a 3 book series and books are a little over 300 pages. takes one month for me to finish
If it’s a series I really enjoy, I don’t want it to end (I’m kinda going through that right now as I’m on book 4 of Caro’s LBJ books). So I usually read 2 or 3 books in-between the volumes. I did the same with The First Law Trilogy (by Joe Abercrombie) and with The Sound of the Wind I just stopped.
Like others said, it depends. I read the (original) Mistborn series in about 48 hours. I couldn’t put them down. It took me almost 2 years to read the next set of books (4 in the set). Even the same author causes changes in reading speed
I usually prefer to read back to back, but these days it’s often not realistic to to having other stuff to read library hold times. If I’m working on a series, I try to read at least one book in the series per week. Right now I’m working on the Recluce series and reading 1-4 of them per week depending what other books I have in at the library.
It depends. I also used to devour series when I was younger, but slowed down a lot as I grew older.
Sometimes I do get into a devour mindset if I’m totally enraptured by the world. Earlier this year I read the 10 book Kate Daniels urban fantasy series in about a month. This past week, I read the 5 book The Others urban fantasy series in a week. I did a Red Rising re-read last month and read the first trilogy in a week.
If I really enjoy the world, I’ll read a series all in one, but I tend to read other books at the same time in different formats and that breaks things up a bit.
Depends on the series and my mental health. I read Wheel Of Time in about 2 months because I needed an out for my Brain. Harry Potter in 2 weeks. But Malazan Book Of the Fallen over the course of a year with a bunch of books in between.