Can you assign books to TWO or more series?

[haertig]

Is there a way to assign books to TWO series? Some authors have characters/plots that cross over every now and then.

e.g., David Baldacci: Bullseye: Will Robie series: Book #3 = David Baldacci: Bullseye: Camel Club series: Book #6

I usually assign series/order based on this website which seems pretty accurate most of the time (example):

https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/david-baldacci/

[pdurrant]

Books can only be in one series. But you can add a custom Subseries column.

So, for example, I have Shadow of a Dark Queen by Raymond E. Feist listed as Riftwar Cycle (book 9), with sub-series SerpentWar (book 1)

[JSWolf]

You can have the same book in multiple collections. But I recommend putting it in the series you plan on reading it.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You can have the same book in multiple collections. But I recommend putting it in the series you plan on reading it.

What are "collections" when talking about calibre?

[theducks]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What are "collections" when talking about calibre?

I think he means "Grouped Searches"
Preferences: Behavior: searching

You should define a pairing for series, so when you search, it will find in either the standard or custom column

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What are "collections" when talking about calibre?

When you have columns with tags and or series, with a Kobo, you can define which columns to use to create collections. With the devices the OP has, this is not possible (except for the Kindle if it is jailbroken).

[Tarana]

Very clunky, but does the job - my late sister handled multiple series by having 2 copies of the book in her library - one under one series and one under the other.

Pern is the only series I have that has a subseries, but since I have the series numbered in publication order, which is how I read it, it doesn't require a separate numbering. I hate having duplicates.

[haertig]

Thanks for the replies. This is only a minor thing, it doesn't really affect anything materially. My guess is that most books that cross series are primarily in one series, with just an occasional mention of a character from a different series. I don't really know, but that's my guess. I have read books out of order before as might accidentally happen with these cross-series books. For the books I've personally read, it's not a big deal.

Since I tend to read action/adventure type of books, each book is usually a totally new adventure that just happens to have characters with the same names as the previous adventure, so you feel at home with it. But in terms of affecting the plot, not in my experience, not with the book series that I have read. I'm sure the experience may change with different series/different authors.

[jcsalomon]

The Calibre series metadata doesn’t lend itself to being expanded to support multiple series. The EPUB3 version does, but (like everything else EPUB3) it’s clunky and poorly supported.

On the other hand, there are some series for which this would be perfect. F. Paul Wilson’s Nightworld is equally Book 6 of the Adversary Cycle and Book 15 of the Repairman Jack series—and neither is a sub-series of the other.

[itimpi]

There is nothing to stop you adding a custom column of type ‘series’ to Calibre and then only populating this additional series column for books which are in two series.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Tarana

Very clunky, but does the job - my late sister handled multiple series by having 2 copies of the book in her library - one under one series and one under the other.

I do something similar.

I create an empty book in the second 'series', and put a link in a custom column to the book folder of the book in the first 'series'. In my case its not same story in different fiction series as such, its 'reprints' of same articles in different magazines, journals etc.

BR