I am not sure when I came upon the Freddy the Pig books (by Walter B. Brooks, 1886–1958) but I suspect they were the first series books I read in any number. Why I, a New York City boy, found these mildly humorous anthropomorphic tales of farmyard animals holding my attention, I’m not sure, but they surely did. There were 26 in the series. I read a lot of them.
Afterwords I moved on up to other series, Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys. At some point, I graduated to read Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. It was an easy reading step to engage with mysteries, which is how I came upon Rex Stout’s (1886–1958) thirty-three Nero Wolfe detective stories. As a teenager, I read a good many of them, intrigued by the detecting skills of Nero Wolfe, but much more caught up by his sidekick, the wisecracking, vaguely tough guy, Archie Goodwin, who narrates the stories.
This introduction explains why, while browsing the other day in a used book store, I stopped short when I saw a Nero Wolfe mystery paperback selling for a buck. In an instant I not only remembered the Wolfe books, but the main characters, as well as the house they lived in (on NYC’s 39th street) and the peripherally important characters: Fritz, the house cook, Lilly Rowan, Archie’s girlfriend, Saul Panzer, a for-hire operative, and so on. And of course, Nero Wolfe himself, the morbidly fat, beer drinking, orchard loving, food loving, pouting, always brilliant detective. The very fact that I can recall these things should tell you how much I enjoyed those books.
To see that book in the bookstore was like running into old friends. Which is, I think, the great attraction of series books.
When we pick up a new book to read, there is a certain amount of mental effort to get into it; gathering up the idea, the setting, the characters, the dynamics of the plot, and so on. Not a hard chore, but one that does require a certain amount of effort. But when you pick up a series book — if you have read many of the other books in the series — there is no effort. They are as easy to step into as an old pair of slippers.
I’ll go further than that. When you engage in a series, and you read, say, book twelve, it’s like coming across a group of comfortable old friends in your favorite neighborhood pizza joint. You sit down, and right off you swap stories: how’s life? How’s your spouse? Kids? Still working at the job? Did you ever take that vacation? Is your mother doing any better? … and so on.
Series books — easy, undemanding friends.
You wouldn’t have read multiple volumes of the series unless they gave you pleasure. To pick up a new one is to know you will have that pleasure again.
Thus, my wife has been enjoying a long-running TV detective series, which features a quick-thinking, murder-solving, but all too human female detective — not my wife’s (an extremely smart, intellectual person) usual taste. “Why do you like it?” I ask. “She makes me smile,” I’m told.
I think that’s the same reason why kids enjoy series books: they are comfortable. They bring smiles of recognition.
I have written only one true series — the seven Poppy books. It’s worth saying — in this context of this essay — that the only reason I could write them was because I, as the author, was very comfortable with the characters. More than that, I loved writing about them. I loved Poppy. I loved Ereth. I loved Ragweed. And so forth. They made me smile.
It’s easy to be dismissive of series books. But in regard to kids reading them, that they bring comfort is the best reason to encourage their reading. Book reading as comfort. Not a bad notion.
As for that Nero Wolfe mystery I found in the bookstore, I brought it home, and I’m looking forward to reading it with pleasure.
What series did you read?