Recommend Me A Series To Binge Read

[janrey]

The Mystery Series by Lisa See (Dragon Bones, Flower Net, The Interior) While Lisa See is most notably known for her Historical Chinese Fiction this series is more contemporary about a woman public security agent and an american attorney.

[Solitaire1]

Two series I can recommend are:

The Myth Adventures Series by Robert Asprin. I had the first book in the series for a long time, and one evening I finally decided to read it. I found it a great read and picked up the rest of the books in the series. NOTE: The series does split into two series, The Myth Adventures Series which focuses on the adventures of the main character, and The Myth Inc. series will focuses on the supporting characters.

Robotech by Jack McKinney. A novelization of the U. S. anime series of the same name. Due to the patchwork nature of the anime (they took three unrelated series and through editing and dubbing they fused it into one story), I found the novels much more interesting and entertaining than the anime. There are 21 books in the series but the order is a little confusing because the first 12 books are an adaption of the anime, and the remaining books fill in the gaps in the original story (as an example, there are five books in a later series that are set between books six and seven of the first series).

[Hitch]

Wow.

• Nobody has mentioned either Poirot or Marple, from Dame Agatha Christie. !!! Zoiks!
• Or the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe series (lovely, like popcorn!).
• Or the Lord Peter Wimseys, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Sheesh, folks.
• What about Dick Francis' fantastic mysteries, with various characters, all centered around horses/horse racing? Not really a series, although he has some reoccurring characters, but near-as.
• SPENSER, from the late Robert B. Parker (granted, they fall off the last few years, in quality, but there are dozens of great ones).
• John Sandford's Lucas Davenport and his Kidd series.
• Robert Crais' detective series, (similar conceptually to Spenser with Hawk), with Pike and Elvis Cole);
• Tony Hillerman's series, with Inspector Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee;
• James Lee Burke and the Dave Robicheaux series.
• Lighter fare, (QUITE A LOT LIGHTER), the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series; the first few books are hysterically funny. Gets a bit repetitive, eventually, but there's a scene in the first book that made me laugh aloud, and that's not easy to do.
• Bonnie McBird's Holmesian pastiches, 3 books so far (or maybe it's four).
• Longmire, a lovely series, by Craig Johnson (again, a bit in the Spenser vein; do-right lawman of large size with large male companion, much wise-cracking and do-righting involved in Wyoming. As I have a place in WYO, I really enjoy a lot of it. Actually, I pretty much love all those books. He can also make me laugh aloud, on occasion--he writes some gorgeous lines, that you just have to admire as a master of his craft.
• Skip Langdon series, (New Orleans lady cop), by Julie Smith (disclosure, she's a client).
• I think someone already mentioned Liz Chen's supernatural series; quite fun but be warned, it "ends" on a cliffhangar, because her idiot publisher wouldn't do the last book AND she refuses to self-publish, which torques me no end.
• Barry Eisler's Rain series.
• Thomas Perry's Jane Whitefield stories. Highly recommended.
• What list would be complete with Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitts? While they get a bit silly after a while, some rather fun adventures, in the first however-many.
• Time Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series. (disclosure, client).
• And last but not least, of course, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhones, starting with A is for Alibi. Unlike Archie and Wolfe (Rex Stout), Kinsey's time period never really changes. She doesn't end up with computers and smartphones and all that; I believe she's stuck in the early 80's, or thereabouts. After a while, that was offputting for me, but overall, still a very worthwhile series.

Without knowing what you like, I defaulted to Mystery, but many of the great Sci-Fi series (other than the ORIGINAL Dune; run like Usain Bolt from the retread "prequels" and "sequels" from his kid) have been covered here. There are some fun supernatural mysteries or whatever; I see someone of course mentioned Harry Dresden, and the author's five-year-long dry spell has (finally) come to an end, so you might enjoy those.

So...any hints as to what you want, my shelves overflow with bingy series of all sorts. SciFi, Fantasy, urban fantasy...I tend to gravitate toward series so that I can have a period of time where I enjoy something and don't want to throw it at the wall and waste my money, ha!

Hitch

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories (Everyman's Library)
https://www.amazon.com/Raymond-Chand...dp/0375415009/

Chandler is of the finest prose vintage, and should be never be binged, but sipped and savored.

[Pajamaman]

For Sci-fi fans, Philip Jose Farmer, Riverworld series and the World of Tiers. I've been re-reading them, and tbh, they are way better than I expected. He's a pretty darn good writer at his best, and way underrated these days.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Wow.

• Nobody has mentioned either Poirot or Marple, from Dame Agatha Christie. !!! Zoiks!
• Or the Rex Stout Nero Wolfe series (lovely, like popcorn!).
• Or the Lord Peter Wimseys, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Sheesh, folks.
• What about Dick Francis' fantastic mysteries, with various characters, all centered around horses/horse racing? Not really a series, although he has some reoccurring characters, but near-as.
• SPENSER, from the late Robert B. Parker (granted, they fall off the last few years, in quality, but there are dozens of great ones).
• John Sandford's Lucas Davenport and his Kidd series.
• Robert Crais' detective series, (similar conceptually to Spenser with Hawk), with Pike and Elvis Cole);
• Tony Hillerman's series, with Inspector Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee;
• James Lee Burke and the Dave Robicheaux series.
• Lighter fare, (QUITE A LOT LIGHTER), the Stephanie Plum bounty hunter series; the first few books are hysterically funny. Gets a bit repetitive, eventually, but there's a scene in the first book that made me laugh aloud, and that's not easy to do.
• Bonnie McBird's Holmesian pastiches, 3 books so far (or maybe it's four).
• Longmire, a lovely series, by Craig Johnson (again, a bit in the Spenser vein; do-right lawman of large size with large male companion, much wise-cracking and do-righting involved in Wyoming. As I have a place in WYO, I really enjoy a lot of it. Actually, I pretty much love all those books. He can also make me laugh aloud, on occasion--he writes some gorgeous lines, that you just have to admire as a master of his craft.
• Skip Langdon series, (New Orleans lady cop), by Julie Smith (disclosure, she's a client).
• I think someone already mentioned Liz Chen's supernatural series; quite fun but be warned, it "ends" on a cliffhangar, because her idiot publisher wouldn't do the last book AND she refuses to self-publish, which torques me no end.
• Barry Eisler's Rain series.
• Thomas Perry's Jane Whitefield stories. Highly recommended.
• What list would be complete with Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitts? While they get a bit silly after a while, some rather fun adventures, in the first however-many.
• Time Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series. (disclosure, client).
• And last but not least, of course, Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhones, starting with A is for Alibi. Unlike Archie and Wolfe (Rex Stout), Kinsey's time period never really changes. She doesn't end up with computers and smartphones and all that; I believe she's stuck in the early 80's, or thereabouts. After a while, that was offputting for me, but overall, still a very worthwhile series.

Without knowing what you like, I defaulted to Mystery, but many of the great Sci-Fi series (other than the ORIGINAL Dune; run like Usain Bolt from the retread "prequels" and "sequels" from his kid) have been covered here. There are some fun supernatural mysteries or whatever; I see someone of course mentioned Harry Dresden, and the author's five-year-long dry spell has (finally) come to an end, so you might enjoy those.

So...any hints as to what you want, my shelves overflow with bingy series of all sorts. SciFi, Fantasy, urban fantasy...I tend to gravitate toward series so that I can have a period of time where I enjoy something and don't want to throw it at the wall and waste my money, ha!

Hitch

Lord Peter Whimsy is crap. It's terribly racist.

As for Spencer, I beat you to that and already mentioned it.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Lord Peter Whimsy is crap. It's terribly racist.

As for Spencer, I beat you to that and already mentioned it.

As I stated in another thread, Jon, we can either abandon older books and classics, declaring that they are racist, etc. or we can read them and appreciate (by which I mean, understand) the time under which they were written.

We can also say that pretty much everything written prior to 1980 is also sexist. So what? Will I keel over dead if I read Pride & Prejudice, where the goal is to snag a husband? Will I faint dead away, if I read Chandler--as mentioned above, fine vintage prose--because almost all women are basically evil double-crossing backstabbers and murderers?

Do we lose all the written history of storytelling, so that, God forbid, we don't see or read something sexist or racist? How far we have come from "sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me," and IMHO, not a good distance.

Half the books on my list have lines or comments that are racist by today's standards. We can read them, make a quick mental note of something that would be objectionable today and move on. Expecting yesterday's authors to hold to today's standards seems absolutely ridiculous to me. What, did Dr. Who pick them all up, bring them to today, educate them and then drop them back, instructing them to write not-objectionable-150-100-years-later prose?

And, BTW, it's Spenser. Not Spencer. For what it's worth. If you don't want to read Wimsey, more power to you. Frankly, I'm shocked that you think it's appropriate to try to dictate to others what they should or shouldn't, or worse, "can't" read.

Hitch

[haertig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Lord Peter Whimsy is crap. It's terribly racist..

I've never heard of him. But I imagine his sales figures just jumped. Comments that attempt to denigrate generally have the exact opposite effect of what was intended.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by haertig

I've never heard of him. But I imagine his sales figures just jumped. Comments that attempt to denigrate generally have the exact opposite effect of what was intended.

It's a series written by Dorothy L. Sayers in the Golden Age of Mysteries, in the late 20's-30's in the UK, featuring an amateur detective Lord (with scads of dosh) and his faithful manservant, Bunter. Later, a woman arrives on the scene-Harriet Vane-who is herself involved in three of the mysteries and becomes LPW's love interest.

FWIW, there are significant arguments about DLS's "racism" and anti-Semitism. While she definitely exhibits the casual racism, etc., of her time, she also has characters, like Miss Climpson, that argue against it, quite forcefully. One of her major gentile upper-class characters falls in love with, and marries a Jewish woman. If one only reads the odd sentence or paragraph, here or there, out of context, yes, she can be made to look like a raving anti-Semite; but if you read the entire series...well, you'll have to make up your own mind.

Hitch

[haertig]

Oh. Lord Peter Whimsy is a character in the books, not the author. Now I feel even stupider than I did a minute ago. That's par for the course...

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by haertig

Oh. Lord Peter Whimsy is a character in the books, not the author. Now I feel even stupider than I did a minute ago. That's par for the course...

Hi:

Why should you? I don't know the protagonist or author of every book written. And hell, I work in the business.

It just FEELS that way, lol....

Hitch

[BobC]

Ursula Le Guin's "Earthsea" books are a great read. Much more "grown-up" wizardry than Harry Potter.

BobC

[JSWolf]

I've read the first Lord Peter book and I hated it. I hated the racism and the antisemitism. I know when it was written and no, I am not going to make allowances for the time the stories are written. There's no need to read such when there are plenty of other series that can be read that are not so horrible.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've read the first Lord Peter book and I hated it. I hated the racism and the antisemitism. I know when it was written and no, I am not going to make allowances for the time the stories are written. There's no need to read such when there are plenty of other series that can be read that are not so horrible.

Wolfie:

Sweetie, suit yourself. Nobody here will force-feed you Sayers or any other author. And isn't it swell that we live in a world in which we have that freedom of choice?

Hitch

[LDB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've read the first Lord Peter book and I hated it. I hated the racism and the antisemitism. I know when it was written and no, I am not going to make allowances for the time the stories are written. There's no need to read such when there are plenty of other series that can be read that are not so horrible.

Certainly your privilege, at least for the short term. We are apparently taking the first step to the revocation of the privilege of choosing what to read or listen to or watch or be allowed to say. Sad. You might potentially be happier as it is always possible lord Peter will be among those banned and burned in the coming cleansing.