Have you ever held back an author's book instead of reading 'em all?

[Sidney]

The Far Side of the Dollar

I've heard of people doing this with Virginia Woolf, saving one book for a "rainy day" after reading all the others.

I realized I'd kind of done it with Ross Macdonald. I read many of the Lew Archer novels when I was younger. I started one of two Lew Archers I've never read the other day, a sixties-era series entry, Far Side of the Dollar.

Coupling it with reading material from It's All One Case: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives - so enjoying the novel and doing informal scholarship at the same time.

My absolute last is The Ivory Grin from the fifties. I enjoy those even though they're not generally considered psychologically rich.

[Nancy, Co-Moderator]

Sometimes I do this, holding back the last novel in a series, particularly if it's a series I happen to be fond of. As an example, I sat on the last Wallander novel by Henning Mankell for a very long time before I read it; same with the last of the Erlendur series books written by Arnaldur Indridason. And I have the entire set of Morse DVDs and still have not watched the last.

[Sidney]

That sounds like a good plan, especially with modern series that have a continuity.

[Nancy, Co-Moderator]

That's coming up again for me with the Montalbano series by Andrea Camilleri -- I do believe I just bought the last novel.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/C_A...

[Sidney]

Guess I'm kind of doing that with Matt Scudder now that I think about it. I own but haven't read what I guess is the last book in that series, A Drop of the Hard Stuff