Listing a series of books "in order"?

["Roger"]

Another pet peeve of mine, ...

Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble sometimes have links to a web page of their own in which they list a series of books listed "in order." This could be very useful if, for example, you are starting a long established mystery series and would like to read the books in order. The problem is that the book sellers' sense of "in order" and my own appear to be quite different. For example, if you want to read Donna Leon's Brunetti detective series in order, you will get different listings from Amazon depending on whether you link to "Donna Leon books in order" or "guido brunette in order" and even these will vary from day to day. On a recent check, Amazon listed the Brunetti series of books in this (what is the real) order:

First #2, then #23, #1, #22, #4 ...

Barnes and Noble is no better. Here is how they list the books "in order"...

#23, #20, #1 #22, #4 ...

Why do they do this????

 

[DaveNV]

Alphabetical titles? What's in stock? Random choices by a computer that has no idea?

Best practice, in my mind, is to visit the publisher's website to see if there is a preferred reading order. Second to that is to visit a fan site and ask about reading order, since chronological publishing dates may not follow the story logic.

Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series is much the same. There are more than a dozen titles in the series. The first three books published form the core of the series. The next three books published were a parallel trilogy that happened roughly at the same historical timeframe as the first three books, but were of events told from a different point of view. The seventh book took place long before the first book, so was a fleshing-out of an historical character referenced throughout the first six books. After that, it was a crapshoot. Some books were stories that happened before anything previously published, while others picked up at the end of the last chronological story published.

Reading order is a matter of opinion. Some fan sites recommend reading in publication order, while others recommend reading them in the historical order of how they happened in the timeline of the people in the stories.

They're all good, but to my mind, if read out of sequence, it affects how the stories impact the reader. Trouble is, how do you determine the sequence?

Dave

 

[PStreet1]

I've seen them give a choice between publishing order and "time order for the series," which might include an earlier look at a character which was, in fact, written after several of the "main" books had been published.

I always go with publishing order.

 

[Don]

Alphabetical titles? What's in stock? Random choices by a computer that has no idea?

Best practice, in my mind, is to visit the publisher's website to see if there is a preferred reading order. Second to that is to visit a fan site and ask about reading order, since chronological publishing dates may not follow the story logic.

Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" series is much the same.

Dave

L. E. Modessitt, Jr. and Dennis McKeirnon also jump around in time. The new story might take place a hundred years before the previous one. You're at the author's mercy if you read the books as they come out, but if the series has been established you can then read them chronologically.
Can you imagine how confused you would be if you read Tolkien's "The Two Towers" before reading "Fellowship Of The Ring".

 

[lvhmbh]

Author's website usually lists them in order!

 

[Bill4728]

Wikipedia often has a list of an author's books in order of publication date.