Category: New Author

Robert Crais Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

Robert Crais Novels
Best reading order for Robert Crais books?

I picked up my first Robert Crais novel, Chasing Darkness (2008) and was immediately hooked.

This book had Joe Pike as the central character. He’s an ex-marine and loves to hunt down the bad guys. (As a superfan of Jack Reacher from Lee Child, the similarities and differences really appealed to me).

Most of the Crais’s books have Elvis Cole as the central character. He’s a private detective, with a effervescent sense of humour.

As for a reading order for Robert Crais books, I propose you do the same as I did. Start somewhere in the middle of the series (I think you’ll really like the books with Pike as the central character), move forward from there and then wrap around to book #1 again.

Enjoy!

Continue reading “Robert Crais Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

Anthony Horowitz Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

Alex Rider. He’s James Bond but a teenager, and without the womanising, alcohol, gambling or weapons.

With all these fun parts removed, you might be thinking “what’s left?”. But rest assured, these books are non-stop action and crammed full of missions, puzzle solving, combat fighting, gadgets, fast cars, faster planes, ferocious animals, and evil organisations.

Rated for readers 13 years and older, boys aged 10 and older will love these stories, especially as audiobooks (about 8 hours long each).

It is important that you read the books in publishing order, which follows. Continue reading “Anthony Horowitz Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

Terry Pratchett Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

First off, a bit of bad news. I’m sorry to say that Terry Pratchett died in March 2015.

The good news is, his discworld stories are amazing and you can enjoy them any time.

You have 2 choices when deciding on a reading order for discworld novels:

  1. By publishing date
  2. No order at all. Complete chaos

Reading them randomly actually kinda works because his stories are crazy, fun and chaotic and they are not part of a series, the characters are different in every book, but my preference is still to read Discworld novels by publishing date. Continue reading “Terry Pratchett Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

J.R.R. Tolkien Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

Can you name the 2nd best selling novel of all time?

The Lord of the Rings trilogy [Amazon].

What about the 3rd best selling book of all time?

The Hobbit (1937) [Amazon].

And Tolkien wrote these in the 1930’s and 1950’s. What a legend.

I propose the following reading order for J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. Continue reading “J.R.R. Tolkien Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

Michael Crichton Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

Did you know that 14 of Michael Crichton’s novels were turned into movies?

That’s got to be some sort of record.

The most famous of those would be Jurassic Park I think.

I’m also sorry to report that Crichton died in 2008 (at age 66), but that didn’t stop his publishers from release 1 novel after his death (Pirate Lattitudes, which was awesome by the way), and had another author finish of another novel (Micro).

Michael Crichton has written some great books, but if I’m honest, he’s written a few duds too. Eg I read Sphere (1987) just a few months ago and couldn’t get through it!

So with his stories I suggest you give them all a go, but if you’re not enjoying it, don’t feel bad if you stop a few chapters in, or half way through. Just close it, and move on to the next one.

Having said that, here’s what I propose for reading order. Continue reading “Michael Crichton Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

Jeffrey Archer Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

Take a quick look at the list of Jeffrey Archer books sorted by publishing date below.

You may notice that Archer’s writing career has gone through 3 phases:

  1. He started with the Kane and Abel series
  2. then, for 27 years wrote stand-alone books
  3. And then started a series that is now up to its 6th book

You could read his work in that order, by publishing date from oldest to newest, but I propose the following reading order instead:

  1. His Stand-alone Novels
  2. then, the Clifton Chronicles
  3. then, the Kane and Abel Series

Continue reading “Jeffrey Archer Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”

Dr. Seuss: What Reading Order Is Best?

Have you heard of Theodor Seuss Geisel?

Me neither.

But you’ve probably heard of the pen name that Geisel used most often “Dr Seuss”.

He used 2 other pen names also:

  1. “Theo. LeSieg” (did you notice that “LeSieg” is Geisel spelled backward?)
  2. and one book using the name “Rosetta Stone”

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born 2 March 1904 and died 24 September 24 1991.

You may notice in the list below that several of his books were published after his death. Continue reading “Dr. Seuss: What Reading Order Is Best?”

C.S. Lewis Books: What Reading Order Is Best?

For C.S. Lewis, I propose the following reading order.

  1. The Chronicles of Narnia in chronological order (not publishing order)
  2. then, The Space Trilogy
  3. the Stand-alone Novels after that
  4. and then Short stories / Collections if you are a super-fan

Chronological order for The Chronicles of Narnia

This is the place to start if you are new to C.S. Lewis, and it’s also important to read these books in this chronological order, not publishing order.

The reason is that this is a better order because the story progresses through time. Publishing order jumps back and forth in time too much. Continue reading “C.S. Lewis Books: What Reading Order Is Best?”