Icarus was a test pilot (galwithglasses) wrote,
Icarus was a test pilot
galwithglasses
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10 Books Meme - the series edition

The meme that folks have been doing listing the 10 books that have stuck with them has been really fun to read.  I realized when I was trying (and failing) to narrow my list to 10 titles that I've read a lot of books in series where the main characters are what have stuck with me.  I've seen Nancy Drew and a couple of other book series on other people's lists too.  I did and really do like being able to stay in the same fictional world with the same characters.  The majority of the fiction I read now is fan fiction and I think in some ways, it holds the same appeal.  The characters are familiar and I enjoy spending time with them.  Maybe that's what is so attractive about sticking with a TV show for 10 seasons.  Not only are the characters well known by this point, the cast, show runner, writers, producers and some of the crew are familiar also.  Maybe that's why continuity and canon glitches are so annoying to me.  I like the continuation of story elements as the seasons go forward and don't like it when they get interrupted.

I figured I'd make a list of some of my favorite series.  It's fun to see how my reading tastes have changed over time but I seem to stick with similar characters or time periods.  Spies and soldiers show up quite a bit as does the Napoleonic War period.  I've read a ton of romance novels where they tend to be written as trilogies or where a minor character in one novel ends up the lead character in the next novel.  I went through about a decade where I mostly read romances, largely because they were formulaic and pretty much guaranteed to have a happy ending but most of the characters have been forgettable so there aren't too many listed here.  Here's my list in more or less chronological order of when I started reading them.  With some, I didn't stick with the whole series as they or I changed over time.


  1. Trixie Belden mysteries

  2. Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey (The first 7 novels written including the Menolly books.)

  3. Merlin trilogy - Mary Stewart (Long before Jensen Ackles was even old enough to walk to school by himself, I pictured a grown-up Merlin looking like Jensen does now.)

  4. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

  5. James Bond - Ian Fleming

  6. Dirk Pitt - Clive Cussler (Adventures exploring shipwrecks.)

  7. Harry Potter - JK Rowling (Glad I got to read them as they were published.)

  8. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon (Read the first five or so.)

  9. Liam Devlin and Sean Dillon - Jack Higgins (The only reason I know the brand names of any Irish whiskey.)

  10. Bourne novels - Robert Ludlum

  11. Fallen Angels - Mary Jo Putnam (Romance novels set during the Peninsula War.)

  12. Troubleshooters, Inc. - Suzanne Brockmann (Romance novels initially centered around the men in a Navy SEAL team.)

  13. Black Dagger Brotherhood - JR Ward (Vampire romances with cool world building.)

  14. Richard Sharpe - Bernard Cornwell

  15. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin - Patrick O'Brian


The last two have the most titles other than Trixie Belden and I've read all of them. Both are set in the early 1800s, one about a British Army officer and the other, a British Navy officer and his ship's surgeon. Both are supposed to be pretty accurate when it comes to historical battle details.

On a totally unrelated note, today is the day people are showing appreciation for Jared Padalecki so the icon is of the hand of his son Thomas hanging on to his Daddy's thumb. Wishing you and your family well, Jared.
Tags: books, jared, series
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