Why book series?

It is a nice Sunday and my thoughts are about series of books. Over the years I noticed that the books I enjoy the most are those that don’t stop at book #1. Frankly the books that I have read, and aren’t a part of a series, are a few and I believe there are many people this moment who caught themselves nodding as they read my post.

So, I was wondering. Why we choose to read series? For me the answer is simple. I love it when I finish a book and I already anticipate the arrival of the next one. It makes me thinking how the story will continue, what the writer is thinking about it, what new adventure the characters will have to face. Many times I am creating my own scenarios about the story or I try to imagine how it is going to be. There aren’t few the times when I discuss it with friends and we share our opinions. This is a magic that a book without a sequel can’t give you. Not because it will not be good but because you will not be able to discuss it as much as you’d like since the story will finish and then all your questions will be answered. At one point I decided not to read any series and so I went to the bookstore to find something new. You know what the result was? I bought a book and when I sat down to read it I saw those little letters which said that it was a part of a series!! Not a big one and not that you couldn’t read it without reading the first, but it was a part of a series. Two things I got from this. Either I should pay more attention at a book’s cover or subconsciously I was craving for another series. I bet it was the second one.

I believe that the reader loves the characters more when he follows the journey from one book to the other. This is something amazing because the author is creating a world which loved and cared by people and somehow behind the pages, the paragraphs, the sentences, the letters, that world materializes and take its place in our hearts like it happened in real life. And that is the magic of all the books but I personally sense it a little more alive when it is about series. Don’t you?