Binge reading

[maarsen]

Is there anyone else out there who binge reads an author the same way one would binge watch a TV series? I have had this tendency since childhood. I would find a book by an author I really liked and then go on to read everything else written by that author. I tend to do this to the exclusion of everyone else until I have exhausted my brain. Tell me your stories of binge reading. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

20 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Is there anyone else out there who binge reads an author the same way one would binge watch a TV series? I have had this tendency since childhood. I would find a book by an author I really liked and then go on to read everything else written by that author. I tend to do this to the exclusion of everyone else until I have exhausted my brain. Tell me your stories of binge reading. 

Yeah this is almost exactly what I do, although the last few years I've been attempting to moderate it by moving along after reading a few books by one author.

[Derfel Cadarn]

I've done it quite a lot.

Did it with Eddings (Belgariad), Robert Jordan (books 2-8, read 1 a few months earlier, wasnt fussed by it, and bought book 2 just to kill time on the train. Loved it and binged the other books out at that time in just over a week.)

Inread thr first 3 Harry Potter books in a day, thrn thr 4th the day after. Thr 5th came out a few months after.

[Jo498]

Not quite that extreme, i.e. not to the complete exclusion of anything else but with a clear focus

- most/all of Hornblower in spring 2005

- most of Judge Dee in the remainder of 2005

- most of Jeeves &Wooster with a few more Wodehouse in Winter 2006/07

- most/all of the Lord Peter Wimsey books and stories between March and October 2007

- also some time around 2007: most of Leo Perutz's books but I think this was spread over a longer time period

- all of Swallow/Amazons between May and July 2008

- all 10 of Sjöwall/Wahlöö from October 08 to January 09

- first three books of SoIaF in around three weeks in January 2011, almost as quickly as I could get my hands on them. Ordered on the 11th, 22nd and 27th. I can't find the purchase date on the 4th now, it must have been in early February but am surprised to see that in late March 2011 I already ordered two anthologies with Dunk&Egg stories in them. (I thought this would have been some time after book 5 but apparently not.)

- First law trilogy right after Xmas 2010; this actually put me onto ASoIaF (although I had read about the books since they came out, they had slipped by and I was not much into Fantasy for many years).

- about 18 Nero Wolfe books in June and July 2015 (got some of them for kindle every other day), this was probably the closest to "binge". Then I took a break and got another half dozen in Jan 2016.

 

[Starkess]

I am sort of this way, in that I like to read a series all at once (one reason I hate reading incomplete series). But I can take a break between different series by the same author, and I prefer to. Once I'm immersed in a world/series I like, I want to stay there as much as possible and I find it distracting to hop back and forth.

[Zorral]

I'm doing this right now with P.F. Chisholm -- not with all the author's books -- but her Sir Robert Carey series.  I just learned of them, though the first volume came out in 1994. They are set at the end of the 16th century - early 17th, and are quite short too, making them perfect for reading before shutting off the lights.

There are series that one simply can't do anything else but read, in their sequence and until one has read them all.  Ay-up Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series is one of those.

I also do this with certain historians, such as Roger Crowley.  I read all of his works.

[maarsen]

On 9/15/2018 at 5:51 PM, Zorral said:

I'm doing this right now with P.F. Chisholm -- not with all the author's books -- but her Sir Robert Carey series.  I just learned of them, though the first volume came out in 1994. They are set at the end of the 16th century - early 17th, and are quite short too, making them perfect for reading before shutting off the lights.

There are series that one simply can't do anything else but read, in their sequence and until one has read them all.  Ay-up Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series is one of those.

I also do this with certain historians, such as Roger Crowley.  I read all of his works.

One can only hope ti find such a series all in order, and available to be read in such order. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

I binged the first ten or so O'Brian books but now I'm trying to spread the rest out because I don't want then to end.  I guess I could always re-read them but I was kind of hoping the unfinished one would be the last thing I ever read.  Should probably get a copy at some point and keep it close by for when death comes a knocking.

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

I binged the first ten or so O'Brian books but now I'm trying to spread the rest out because I don't want then to end.  I guess I could always re-read them but I was kind of hoping the unfinished one would be the last thing I ever read.  Should probably get a copy at some point and keep it close by for when death comes a knocking.

I admire your self restraint. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I do this with very good authors, especially within a specific series.

Cornwell's Sharpe series, ASOIAF (it was a trilogy then), Tolkien's Middle Earth, O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Forrester's Hornblower series, David Mitchell (even though not a series), Abercrombie's First Law series, and too many others to mention.

Some authors require spacing between their books.  I really like Irving Welsh but I need a gap between his books or I'd be on suicide watch.  Neal Stephenson books need a gap too, even his Baroque Cycle trilogy.

[maarsen]

On 9/19/2018 at 1:19 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

I do this with very good authors, especially within a specific series.

Cornwell's Sharpe series, ASOIAF (it was a trilogy then), Tolkien's Middle Earth, O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Forrester's Hornblower series, David Mitchell (even though not a series), Abercrombie's First Law series, and too many others to mention.

Some authors require spacing between their books.  I really like Irving Welsh but I need a gap between his books or I'd be on suicide watch.  Neal Stephenson books need a gap too, even his Baroque Cycle trilogy.

Again I admire your restraint.  A good book is like a drug for me and I find it sooo hard to stop after just one.

[LongRider]

Sometimes; Guy Garviel Kay, China Meiville and Neil Gaiman. Now days tho I like a little pallet cleanse  between authors.

 

 

 

[Darth Richard II]

I used to do this more in High School, back when I only got books from the Library. My god, I think i went through most of King in a few months. Last time I did I think was when I discovered Cornwell and Sharpe back in oh, 08? Went through most of his work like candy.

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

When i was younger I did this a lot. Now I find that I get sick to death of a writer's voice if I read more than three books in a row without changing things up.