You all know I love to read, right? This here is a picture of my stack of library books…my unread and overdue library books. Look, I’ve been busy lately, planning a first birthday party, going out of town, pondering the meaning of my life, folding laundry. All that, plus trying to find the source of a weird smell in my house, hasn’t left much time for reading. Plus, I’m reading a book for review that was due last Wednesday.

Since my typical reaction to a long list of to-dos is procrastination and because all this talk of books makes me think of, well, books, I thought I’d talk a bit about the kind of books I like today. Specifically, the series of books I read and the characters I love. Because talking about reading is somewhat similar to actually reading all the books on my list. Right.

By the way, I blame/credit Dog Snob for inspiring me to write about this. She mentioned reading series of books on her site, and I realized how much I do this, too. Her reasoning was that just as she loves losing herself in a story, it’s even more satisfying to lose herself in a series, where you get to know a character or group of characters so much better.

I agree with that reasoning. But I can’t deny that part of my series love stems from my (self-diagnosed) OCD. I think it falls under the compulsive part – just wanting to devour, I mean, read, every book in a series solely to have done it. Again, it’s the quantity over quality thing, the unreasonable desire to acquire or accomplish everything in a single category.

In this case, my obsession/compulsion started when I was a child, trying to read every single Nancy Drew book and later realizing that starting with H is for Homicide would not satisfy, not until I’d read every inch of back story in Sue Grafton’s A through G books. The most recent manifestation of my disease is the stack of Iris Johansen books I checked out from the library when I realized I hadn’t read all the books in the Eve Duncan series. Now, let me point out right here that I wasn’t sure I’d left some books unread. I knew that I may have actually read them all. But just in case, I checked them ALL out, just to make sure.

Thankfully, I did come to my senses at least briefly. I returned all the books – unread and read – to the library, realizing I’d never get to all of them, accepting that reading the new novels as they are published would be just fine, acknowledging that I understood the character well enough without reading every single book in which she’s featured.

But since my need for gathering everything that falls into one category must be met, here is my list of book series I’ve read and/or am reading. It’s way too long, so here’s my question for you first: Do you read any book series? If you don’t, who is your favorite fictional character?

And now, my list:

• Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys
• Trixie Belden
• Bobbsey Twins
• Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High
• Babysitters Club
• Sue Grafton’s alphabet series
• Chronicles of Narnia
• Dan Mahoney’s Brian McKenna series
• Jill Elizabeth Nelson’s to catch a thief series
• Susan May Warren’s Mission: Russia, Heartquest, Josey, Team Hope and Noble Legacy series
• Little House on the Prairie
• Lisa Scottoline’s Rosato & Associates series
• James Patterson’s women’s murder club series
• Kasey Michael’s Maggie series
• Robert Ludlum’s Bourne and Covert One series
• Karen Kingsbury’s Baxter series
• Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series
• Faye Kellerman’s Decker/Lazarus series
• Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series
• Iris Johansen’s Eve Duncan series
• The Yada Yada Prayer Group series
• Dee Henderson’s O’Malley series
• Janet Evanovich’s Plum series
• Catherine Coulter’s FBI thriller series
• Mindy Starns Clark’s Tulip and Million Dollar series
• Don Brown’s Navy Justice series
• Terri Blackstock’s Cape Refuge series
• David Baldacci’s Camel Club series