As you scan the
shelves of your local library, a book catches your eye. You recognise the
author vaguely, but not the title. Your interest is peaked. You pull the book
from the shelf and after a quick glance at the cover, you rotate it in your
hands so you can read the blurb. This book is just what you've been looking for
and you start to get excited at the prospect of reading it. You open it up to
scan the first page and as you begin to read, you notice that something feels wrong.
Flipping back a few pages you find out that this is actually the second book in
the series. With a dejected sigh you put the book back in its place and after
realising that the first book is nowhere to be found, you set yourself back on
the task of looking, again.
This situation is one that I always find to be annoying. I
can really want to read a book, but, as someone who never starts a series with
a book other than the first, then have to wait months to read it or, in the
worst cases, never get to read it at all.
It is made worse when I do not realise it isn't the first
book in the series while looking through the collection of books there.
Firstly, I feel like a bit of an idiot for not realising and secondly, when I
realise at home it feels more deflating as I have prepared myself to read the
book, only to find out after it has been waiting on me for days to start it,
that I can't.
All of this makes me a big fan of series that have the
number of each book on their spine. Some may call it ugly, but I think of it a
useful. That way there can be no doubt about whether I'm picking up the first
book in the series or not and then this whole situation can be avoided.
-E
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