I like to read mysteries. And many mysteries are part of a series. One thing I’ve noticed is the way books let readers know that it is part of a series varies greatly. One very popular series is the Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich. These titles are very conveniently titled with the corresponding number, i.e., One for the Money, Two for the Dough, etc. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Mysteries are also an obvious progression, A is for Alibi, B is for Burglar, and so on. Other books, will give you the series number somewhere on the book. Sometimes the number is on the book spine, on the cover, and sometimes on the books cover page. The cover page is in the beginning of the book, and supplies information like title, author and publisher. On the cover of the book Sunrise by Karen Kingsbury, we are told that this is the first book in the Sunrise Series. Another example is Gilbert Morris’s Singing River Series. One the cover page, we see that the book ‘The Dream’ is Book II of the series. In other cases, the name of the series the book belongs to is written on the cover. For example Have ‘Your Cake and Kill Him Too’ by Nancy Martin is A Blackbird Sisters Mystery.

You can see from these different examples that there is no standard way to display information about book series. If you’re like me, I generally like to double check the order of the series, especially if there is no series number on the book. (And I know you are out there because I’ve had these questions at the Reference Desk before!) The database Novelist is the best source to double check series information. You can access the Novelist database from the Nashua Library database webpage. If you are in the library, sign on to one of our computers to access the database. If you are at home, you will need to enter the last 5 digits of your barcode. Once you are in Novelist, you can type in the author, book title or series title. Along with the search results, you will see what series a particular book belongs in and the order in which to read them in. (Check out these blog entries for more great Novelist features: Want to Know What to Read Next?, Novelist - Make it your own, and For Fun Try Novelist). If you like to use Amazon, you can also search titles and authors, and they will sometimes list, next to the title, series information.

Leave a comment about a series you are reading.