Book Binges, Gloms, and Serializations

Since Netflix started releasing entire TV seasons at once, people have started commenting on the phenomenon of ‘binge watching’—basically sitting down and watching episode after episode in a short period of time. Lately I’ve seen some articles like this one You May Soon Binge Books Like You Do Netflix talking about serialized fiction.

These articles make me laugh. Dude, seriously please: I’ve been book bingeing forever and so have most other bookworms. For evidence I submit the following Dear Author article dated 2013 The Science of the Glom 

I don’t want a ‘serialized’ novel that I have to shell out money for only parts of a book. What I do love is discovering new series with numerous books already out and glomming onto the series or sometimes a new author and glomming their backlist or both.

Here’s an example: by the time I read Moon Called, the first book in Patricia Brigg’s bestselling Merecedes Thompson urban fantasy series book three was already out. I liked book one so I picked up books two and three, which were even better. Now officially hooked, I had to wait for book four. Looking around for more of her stuff, I discovered On The Prowl a collection with a novella by Patricia Briggs called Alpha and Omega, which was in the same world as the Mercedes Thompson series, but featured different characters. I loved the story and was delighted when it spun off its own series. Around the same time, her clever publisher re-released all her older backlist titles with new paperback editions. I bought them all. I remember driving across town for one because my local bookstore didn’t have the title, but one of the other bookstores in the city did.

Once I’m caught up in a series, I don’t whine and gnash my teeth waiting for the next book to come out--which isn't to say I'm not highly anticipating the next one--March! Silence Fallen!--but that I read a lot of authors and series to the point where there's almost certain to be one or two releasing in a given month. And if I run out of current ones I start looking for my next series/glom.

Last year I glommed Gini Koch’s Kitty Katt campy alien series and Brent Week's epic fantasy Lightbringer series.

This year I’m glomming Laura Resnick’s urban fantasy Esther Diamond series.

What books and authors have you glommed onto lately? (And if you're in a reading slump, check out yesterday's post by Marie Harte.)