Complete-a-Series Disorder

complete-a-series-disorderI have been doing some early spring cleaning this past week…even though this past week we had yet another Alberta blizzard hit us, making it obvious that Winter is still upon us.

But I digress….

I decided to clean out my book shelves in the middle of this cleaning frenzy. With thousands of books downloaded on my Kindle, I realized that some of my books appear so redundant (and lonely) to be sitting on my bookshelves collecting dust, so I decided to sell some great book series I have accumulated, and donate the rest of my books to charity.

It is painful for me to let go of those dusty books because I still remember the pure joy and pleasure I had when I read each story. I remember times and places I read each book, some read while sitting on a beach, or house boating, or camping, or just curled up in my favorite chair on those long winter nights. Some were given to me as gifts when I was in the hospital battling breast cancer and I found reading to be a great distraction and comfort to me while awaiting and undergoing treatments.

I have an eclectic taste in books so I have Christian, Historical Romance, Science Fiction, Classics and some Young Adult series. I’ve got devotionals, biographies and autobiographies. Reading has always been my passion ever since I was a little girl. For one glorious summer in Grade Seven I read as many of the Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan books as I could get a hold of. Another summer it was Trixie Belden books, and of course the entire collection of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables” series. Then I went through my “Bruno and Boots” (Gordon Korman) phase, Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia and when my kids wanted to read some of the popular series of the day, I decided to preview them first so I read the Harry Potter Books, the Twilight series and the Hunger Games.

The thing with any book series is that once I start reading one I need to read every book in the series. It’s a compulsion I have. Even if I don’t really care for some of the books in a series, if I know there’s a couple more to follow, I just have to read the next one. It must be a reading disorder I have…”Complete-a-Series Disorder” I call it.

Which led me to quite a dilemma a few years ago. I found seventeen of a nineteen book series in a used book store: Peter Danielson’s, The Children of the Lion series. Written in the early eighties by several authors, it is a series loosely based on Old Testament stories. I decided to buy the set and read a few of the books and I immediately got “hooked” on the series. Then came the disquieting realization that I was missing #15 and the last book of the series #19. I looked everywhere for the elusive books and finally in desperation emailed the author and he graciously sent me a link to where I could order the books! Yay! He did however, tell me that the series is not complete because the publisher refused to publish more of the series beyond the 19th book.

I have yet to actually sit down and read the last few books of the series fearing I will never get over this feeling of “incompleteness” and disappointment when a series ends without a good conclusion.  Like the way I felt at the end of the T.V. series “Lost”.

Anyway, it did get me thinking if there are other people with the “Complete-a-series Disorder” like me? Leave a comment and tell me what series you got “hooked” on and just had to finish.

This entry was posted in Proverbs 16:9 - Journey Thoughts and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to Complete-a-Series Disorder

  1. Jan Marie says:

    I completely understand what you mean! For me, when I was younger, it was The Hardy Boys. There was also a series called Bomba, the Jungle Boy by Roy Rockwood that I have tried for many years to collect. I read a couple of books in the series when my brother’s friend gave them to him when we were quite young. Then I managed to find a few of them when my children were younger but have never been able to get the complete series and it has bothered me for many years not to know how it ended. One of my big disappointments in life is not finding that complete series. Still looking even though my own children have long outgrown them – perhaps the grandkids will get to read the finale!

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