Most Loved Series

Keeping all the books in mind, not the first was great and the others were okay. What is your favorite series as a whole?

Other than the obvious (Harry Potter) my favorite series is the Amelia Peabody mysteries. They never fail to make me laugh and I love the family so much that I miss them when I finish reading, which to me is one of the hallmarks of a good book.

Ooh, that's a really tough call. I love series. I've recently noticed that I heavily favor them over standalone novels; more than half of my TBRs are part or all of series. So let's see...... I'll pose the "stranded on a desert island" question to help myself narrow it down.

I'd get it down to the HP books and the Anne of Green Gables books, and if forced to choose, I'd likely go with Harry Potter. If I could consider all of the Valdemar novels as one very long series, I might choose that for the sheer amount of reading I'd get - more bang for the buck! - but I think it should really be broken down into its various trilogies for the purpose of this question, and no single trilogy has got what it takes to overtake Anne or Harry.

Bib, now that I've ordered the first book, I'm excited to hear that Amelia Peabody is so high on your list! There are quite a lot of those books, aren't there? Have you read all of them?

HP is definitely the obvious one for me too. The Inkheart series comes to mind. So does The Last Apprentice series.

Laia, I seem to prefer series too. Not on purpose, it just so happens that my favorite stories come in several volumes.

Like laia I'm pretty sure half of my TBR pile consists of books in a series. It's so hard to pick just one of the series I've read as a favorite. There are a lot of great trilogies out there.

Harry Potter is definitely one of my top favorite series, probably being my most favorite. Another series that's a top favorite of mine is the Thursday Next series. If you need laughter medicine these books won't fail you.

Rowling and Fforde are both two outstanding people as far as I'm concerned. The amount of knowledge they have that they pour into their books is really amazing. That said, we all know Tolkien was really up there in the way of oustanding authors. I greatly admire all three of them.

#4: I have read all of them, at the moment there are 18. I've read them in publication order, although one or two recent ones actually come earlier chronologically, I think I may read them that way this year.

I agree about the Thursday Next series, although on a re-read I was less excited about a couple in the middle. My current favorites are a series of mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming, starting with In the Bleak Midwinter. They feature a female Episcopalian priest who used to be an army helicopter pilot--fascinating, well rounded character.

I agree with bib on Amelia Peabody. We love that series. bib, I don't if you realize it but there was a crossover recently from one of Elizabeth Peters' other series where the main character meets some decendants of the Emersons. I have to look it up, my sister-in-law read it.

It does help to read the Peabody mysteries in order. Lots of characters and they tend to pop in and out of different books. ;o)

Besides the Harry Potter series and the Amelia Peabody series, I also love the Percy Jackson series and too many more to list them all.

Other than Harry, I think the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman would be my second favourite. Then, I'd probably go with the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce...I really loved that one. Oooo! And the Diadem: Worlds of Magic series by John Peel is also one of my favourites.

I think I have indecision problems because I also really liked the Inkheart trilogy by Cornelia Funke. And once upon a time I liked the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky, but those don't hold too much interest for me now. Ok, I got off topic, this is about most loved series...

10- Oh, I forgot Tamora Pierce books! She has some really good series. I think it would be more accurate for me if this thread was: Most Loved Bunch of Series.

I wouldn't expect anyone to have one favorite anyway. That's just not possible among the likes of us!

Harry Potter by JKR
LOTR by JRR Tolkein
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon

Harry Potter
His Dark Materials
Lord of the Rings
Charlie Bone
Twilight
Wicked
Star Wars

I love Twilight the best (besides HArry Potter of course) And I love His Dark Materials, Inkheart, and A Great and Terrible Beauty.

Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia are both high on my list. Beyond that, it's hard to say, because there are so many good ones.

I didn't say LOTR for the same reason I didn't list Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun: they aren't series, but just multi-volume novels.

The Narnia books, on the other hand, are a series and a longtime favorite. Also Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster of Hed series.

Harry Potter
Twilight
Charlie Bone
Artemis Fowl
Princess Diaries (I really didn't think I would fall in love with this series)
King Raven Trilogy (actually any of this author's trilogies are wonderful)
Narnia
Inheritance Trilogy (even though I'm not finished with the last book yet)

Would Gail Carson Levine's books be considered a series? I love her books that are twisted fairy tales.

Omg,....Twilight Saga of course. I completely forgot about those. Those are definitely high!!!

Harry Potter
Twilight
Uglies
Women's Murder Club
Scarpetta Series By: Patricia Cornwell
Daughters of the Moon

These aren't in any order except for the first two... I can't choose between the rest!

#18 -- Couldn't you make a case for all of the various different books about Middle Earth being a series? I understand where you are coming from with The Lord of the Rings, but if you also include The Silmarillion and The Hobbit could you consider those works to be a series?

Sorry to play devil's advocate there. I have too many favorite series to list, so I'm not even going to try.

Oh another favorite series of mine is A Song of Ice and Fire. To the point where I started a group about it and obsessively check the author's site 5 times a day in hopes that he will announce the next book is done.

Foreigner - consistently high all the way through 9 books and still going very strong!
Harry Dresden - ditto
FForde, yep pretty good without much variance.
Donaldson - again very consistent.

I've got way too many incomplete series though.

OtherHalf, was very taken with Princesses diaries too, altough apparently book 8 wasn't quite as good.

Bib, I never finished A Feast for Crows. I loved that series until that book. Dance with Dragons is the next one, right? Is it out?

#25: Nope, which is why I'm obsessively checking the site. If I remember correctly Feast for Crows started a bit slowly but picked up, I remember particularly liking Arya and Samwell's stories. Part of the problem with FfC of course was that many of my favorite characters were missing, Dany and Jon are the two I really care about and they're in Dance.

I like the Sister Fidelma series by Peter Tremayne and The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I read mostly series and I enjoy many but I would have to say for right now those 3 are near the top.

#22 I wouldn't call them a series, but I also wouldn't presume to stop you from calling them one ;-) Maybe they belong to a different kind of series, one that includes books set in the same place but not necessarily with the same style, or tone, or necessarily the same characters. LeGuin's Hainish novels would be another example, or Guy Kay's several fantasies that inhabit the same world based on medieval Europe.

Forgot one of my real favorites: UKL's Earthsea books.

I have read only like 5 series and from those I only like these:

The Dollangager Series by V.C. Andrews (even though I didn't like the third one a lot I enjoyed the series as a whole.

His Dark Materials Series by Philip Pullman (Loved all three equally).

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling ( I think this was kinda of obvious but three series look better than two :P)

#18, 22 & 28: I seriously debated whether to include LOTR and His Dark Materials on my series list because I feel that both of them count more as trilogies/extended novels, and not necessarily series. I finally decided I didn't care, particularly with LOTR because I do feel that the inclusion of The Hobbit lends weight to the series classification, at least in my estimation.

hmmm Favorite series of all time? Most go back to my childhood. 8)

-> Lioness series by Tamora Pierce
-> Fear Street by R.L. Stine
-> The Babysitters Club by Ann Martin
-> The Prey Novels by John Sanford

I'm sure I have others because I love series because I never want the story to end. 8)

When I was...younger (cant say kid cause I still am one) I really liked The Boxcar Children

Oh I read the Boxcar Children books all the time when I was little! I loved them! But I reread the first one just a couple years ago and realized that they aren't all that great really, but man did I love them as a kid.

I know me too. I dont even know why I loved them so much, but I did.

Potter, of course. Various mystery series come to mind--Lindsay Davis's Falco books, Robert Parker's Spenser series, Ellis Peters' Cadfael books, Elizabeth George's Lynley and Havers series, and so on--I'm sure there are more. Oh, yes, and the Trixie Belden books from my childhood.

One of my all-time favorites, though, is The Heaven Tree trilogy by Edith Pargeter (the real name of Ellis Peters). All three books are good but the first one is just wonderful.

I also love The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe series. (I dont know if they have a name)

My very first series was The Bobbsey Twins. The Hardy Boys mysteries were probably my very first favorite series. In fifth grade, I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder series and got introduced to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars and Venus and Pellucidar series! (Many of the series mentioned here weren't around when I was a child.)

There was Harry Potter, of course, but also:
Those Ramona Quimby books
Lord of the Rings
Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy
The Leaphorn and Chee books by Tony Hillerman
Etc.

>#36: Narnia.

>#37: Yay John Carter of Barsoom! I want Tars Tarkas for a sidekick.

39> Well that would make sense.

It does sound better that "Those books with the honking big lion".