Over the course of my time working in a public library, I’ve noticed something. Quite frequently a patron will check out stacks of books by the same author, return them in three weeks or less, and then pick up whatever else by that author we have. They will remark something like, “I’m on a Nora Roberts/Stuart Woods/James Patterson/Janet Evanovich kick right now.” Then I have this one regular patron who will go back semi-regularly and re-read everything one of her favorite authors has written, in quick succession.
I’ve never been able to do that. I do have reading phases, like my Virginia Woolf phase about ten years ago, where I read most of her novels and many biographies – but this was over the course of a year or two, with plenty of other titles sprinkled in. I do read mystery series as well, like Rendell’s Inspector Wexford and Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch series. But I can’t bang them out one after another. I’ll read one and then it will be three or four months later before I get to the next one.
I’m wondering if you fall into one of these camps. Do you like to read all of a particular author’s work quickly, one after another? Or do you prefer to space them out? I like to ponder reading habits like this one – it’s great that there are so many styles and ways to enjoy reading!
I used to do that quite a lot, at the public library. I’d discover an author, read everything the library had by her, and then find out if she’d written anything else. I do it less now, because I’m discovering fewer established authors I haven’t read yet.
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Good point! I guess after a while you’d have less multiple-volume authors to choose from.
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Space them out! If I read them too close together I can get burnt out on the author and everything starts to seem like the same book. I read three P.D. James books once in the course of a month and it was a huge mistake. I haven’t been able to read her again since.
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