Five Happy Things

Starting a New Series

One of the best gifts you can give a reader friend is the first book in a new (to them!) series.

I just finished reading The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers, the last book in the Wayfarers series. I loved it so much!

The whole series is joyous, hopeful space opera. I want to say that it’s very human, but very few of the characters are actually human, so maybe it’s best to say that it’s wonderfully humane? Probably the best thing I can say about them is that the books make me very happy. 🙂

Each book functions as a standalone, but I recommend reading them in order, which means starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

I used a few criteria for all the series I’m recommending in this week’s Five Happy Things. The series needs to be complete. The perfect book gift is an introduction to a new series that you love, so you can settle in and binge your way through the rest. 🙂 That means I’m not recommending many new books here. That’s ok. Old books are awesome too. But I’m only recommending series where you can easily acquire more. So even though many of the books are older, they’re all still in print.

Here are four more series I love to recommend. . .

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2. Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian. This is the first book in the delightful Aubrey/Maturin novels about a ship captain and his best friend during the Napoleonic Wars. That may sound dry to some, but these books are anything but dry. They’re full of humor, tragedy, action, suspense, romance, and adventure. I adore them.

3. The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander is the first book in The Chronicles of Prydain series. This was hands-down my favorite fantasy series as a kid. In a recent chat with a group of friends, we were all talking about our childhood favorites and wondering how they hold up today. So many of us remembered this series fondly that we’re re-reading the whole thing as a group, and they’re just as wonderful as I remember! Like so many other fantasy series, it’s a classic struggle between good and evil. What sets this one apart is how wonderful (and memorable!) all the characters are. My favorite is Fflewddur Fflam - a bard who loves to spin a tale, but whose harp strings break if he stretches the truth too much. 🙂

4. The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker is the first book in the Spenser detective novels. On the surface Spenser seems like a classic hard-boiled detective - not usually my favorite thing. He’s a big guy, a boxer, and not shy about using his fists when needed. But he’s also a terrific cook, a feminist, an avid and thoughtful reader, and an all-around good guy who’s doing his bit to make the world a better place. Bonus - he has killer descriptions of seventies fashion. 🙂 There are 52 books in the series, but I don’t love the ones written by other authors after Robert Parker died. That still leaves you with 39 good ones.

5. The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry is the first book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. Thomas Pitt is a police detective in Victorian London and Charlotte is his upper-class wife. These are traditional mysteries with a lot of social commentary, and I’m always surprised by how relevant that commentary still is today. This is a series I often fall back on when I’m in a reading rut.

If you have a favorite series you’d like to recommend, please post a comment! It was hard to limit myself to just five so I’ll probably do another collection in the future. 🙂

You can find past newsletters with book recommendations here.

Enjoy!

Best,
Wendi
❤️

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In an effort to have fewer email providers chop my emails in half because they’re so dang long, I’ve moved my inspirations (book recommendations, favorite recipes, and awesome artists) to their own newsletter every Wednesday. Think of it as a quick way to fill your cup in the middle of the week. 🥰

If you’d rather not receive these Wednesday emails you can turn them off and still receive the regular Monday news and Friday archives.

1. Click this link.

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Easy peasy!