I have just finished reading my ninth book in the past month. This is not a great accomplishment as they were all frivolous little mysteries in the same series. It is the Agatha Raisin series by M. C. Beaton. (She also writes the Hamish MacBeth series, of which I have posted about before.) My enjoyment of the series is mostly due to the characters, who are very real, flawed, funny, and just plain empathizable -- not sure if that's a word (if it's not, I'm coining it now--that's my way of cheating the system). Enhancing my enjoyment all the more was reading those nine books in order, thereby following the characters' progress in that time. The ones I read were: Agatha Raisin and the Wellspring of Death Agatha Raisin and the Wizard of Evesham Agatha Raisin and the Witch of Wyckhadden Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell Agatha Raisin and the Day the Floods Came Agatha Raisin and the Case of the Curious Curate Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House The Deadly Dance: An Agatha Raisin Mystery The Perfect Paragon: An Agatha Raisin Mystery
The last two were my favorites of them all, which makes me want to move right on to the next one, Love, Lies, and Liquor! I won't though. I must continue my Summer Reading List!
On the plus side (the downside being that I've taken such a long break from my aforementioned Summer Reading List), those nine books helped me increase the number of books I've read this year, as opposed to last year, by nine exactly! See? If it hadn't been for reading them, I would have felt like I didn't increase productivity at all this year. And isn't it all about increasing productivity?