Tag / Kindle

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Streaking Authors

Every other year or so, we take a fresh look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  I thought it would be interesting to mix it up a bit and, instead of looking at the overall total, to instead look at the authors I have read continuously for the longest period of time.  So, without further ado, it’s time to take a look at which authors have the longest streak of consecutive years read.

Ten

Jeffery Deaver – Thanks mostly to his Lincoln Rhyme series, Deaver put together a streak of ten years with at least one book read by me starting in 2015 with The Vanished Man and ending in 2024 with Fatal Intrusion, his first collaboration with Isabella Maldonado.  After a one-year absence, corresponding with my completing the Rhyme series, he returned in 2026 to hopefully start a new streak.

Nine

Riley Sager – Sager burst onto the scene in 2017 with his first novel, Final Girls.  Every year since, he has put out a new book and I have read it, continuing through last year’s With a Vengeance.  He can extend his streak and tie Deaver for the longest if the library can deliver his latest in the next two months or so.

Karin Slaughter – Another current streak, Slaughter first came across my notice in 2018 thanks to Pretty Girls.  Due in part to her Will Trent and Grant County series, she has showed up at least once every year since, including Girl, Forgotten, which I completed earlier this year.

Eight

Richard Castle – The ghost writer for Richard Castle, the character portrayed by Nathan Fillion in Castle, made appearances in eight straight years, thanks to the novels that were supposedly written in the show, starting in 2010 with Heat Wave and culminating in 2017 with A Bloody Storm.

Six

Sarah Pekkanen – Starting in 2020, with her writing partner Green Hendricks, Pekkanen started her streak with The Wife Between Us.  Her streak outlived the partnership, continuing through last year with The Locked Ward.

Five

Nancy Holder – Thanks to her television show tie-in work, Nancy Holder was able to string together a streak of five years, starting in 1998 with Halloween Rain, based on the adventures of Bully the Vampire Slayer, and finishing in 2002 with The Burning, a collaboration with Jeff Mariotte.

Stephen King – My history with King is long but contains many frequent breaks.  His longest streak, which is current through the end of the year, started in 2021 with Later and runs through last year, when I completed his latest, Never Flinch.

Mary Kubica – The local author first came to my attention in 2015 with The Good Girl.  She appeared at least once annually through 2019, when I completed When the Lights Go Out.

Rebecca Forster – Forster was a constant presence as I worked through her Witness series, beginning in 2021 with Silent Witness and completing last year with Lost Witness.

Alex Finlay – Finlay first landed on my Kindle in 2022, thanks to Every Last Fear.  His streak continues on, thank to this year’s The Anniversary.

Richard Osman – His Thursday Murder Club series has helped him put together a streak of five years, starting in 2022 with The Thursday Murder Club and continuing through 2026 with The Impossible Fortune.

Elin Hilderbrand – We wrap up with Hilderbrand, who also has a current five-year streak going into 2027.  She started in 2022 with The Hotel Nantucket and continued this year with Winter in Paradise.

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Book 39 (of 52) – People We Meet On Vacation

People We Meet On Vacation – Emily Henry

After two years of silence, Poppy reconnects with her best friend Alex, hoping they can get past the awkwardness of their last vacation together and rekindle their relationship.  Agreeing to a trip to Palm Springs, harkening back to the low-cost trips of their youth before attending the wedding of Alex’s brother, they try to pretend that nothing has changed, but the stifling heat turns up the tension until they can’t ignore the truth any longer.

Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, the 2021 Goodreads Choice winner for Favorite Romance, is her annual appearance on my Kindle for this year.  It is a story that hits a little close to home, with friends that have drifted apart in spite of themselves, but it was an entertaining read.  It had recently been adapted to a movie by Netflix, which I’m sure I’ll watch at some point.  Despite romance not being my genre, Henry is now four for four with me.

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Book 29 (of 52) – Girl, Forgotten

Girl, Forgotten – Karin Slaughter

Andrea Oliver, fresh out of training to be a US Marshall, finds herself with an unusual assignment: protecting a federal judge while secretly investigating the 40-year-old death of the judge’s daughter, with her imprisoned father as the chief suspect.  With her new partner kept in the dark, Andrea tries to straddle the two tasks, but everyone and everything seems to conspire to bring the two together. Once she learns the truth about who is threatening the judge, the pieces of the other case fall into place.

In her follow-up to 2018’s Pieces of Her, Karin Slaughter picks back up the story of Andrea Oliver, now a newly minted US Marshall, in Girl, Forgotten.  It was interesting to revisit this character as she tries to find her place in the world following the events of the first book.  I’m not sure if there is more coming or if this was the end of the line, but Slaughter never disappoints and she’s sure to be back on my Kindle sooner rather than later.

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Book 27 (of 52) – The Case of the Careless Kitten

The Case of the Careless Kitten – Erle Stanley Gardner

When a mysterious phone call leads Helen Kendal to believe her long-missing uncle is ready to make his return, Perry Mason finds himself caught up in multiple mysteries, including what happened to the missing uncle, who shot Helen’s boyfriend, who poisoned Helen’s aunt and cat, and how does the whole thing tie together.  When Hamilton Burger assumes Mason has stashed the missing uncle out of sight and charges Della with obstruction, it forces Perry to put the puzzle together to prove Della’s innocence.

Originally published in 1942, The Case of the Careless Kitten is 21st entry in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series.  This case, though heavily modified, was featured as the 24th episode of season eight in the Raymond Burr version of the show in 1965.  Since this is a little further along in the series, the characters align more closely with those we are familiar with from television compared to the earlier entries.  This was the final book I managed to snag during a New Year’s sale in the Kindle store, so it may be some time before I am able to return to Gardner’s oeuvre.

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Book 9 (of 52) – The Case of the Baited Hook

The Case of the Baited Hook – Erle Stanley Gardner

When a mysterious, late-night meeting with a man and a disguised woman, who may eventually become a client, puts Perry Mason in a bind after a trustee is found dead, he tries to figure out which of the many possibilities surrounding the case the disguised woman may be.  Once he is personally charged with aiding and abetting the homicide, but before he is officially arrested, he manages to track down the truth, both of his mystery client and who actually committed the murder, clearing hiw own name.

Originally published in 1940, The Case of the Baited Hook is 16th entry in Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason series.  This case, though heavily modified, was featured as the fourteenth episode of season one in the Raymond Burr version of the show.  Since this is a little further along in the series, the characters align more closely with those we are familiar with from television.  Thanks to a sale in the Kindle store to celebrate the new year, I was able to pick up a couple additional stories from Gardner’s oeuvre, which I hope to work through over the coming months,

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Book 1 (of 52) – Too Old For This

Too Old For This – Samantha Downing

When a journalist shows up on her doorstep looking to make a docu-series clearing her name, retiree Lottie Jones has only one option: to kill her and make her disappear.  However, this starts the ball rolling, as the police, the journalist’s boyfriend, and her mother start poking around.  Can Lottie pull her fat out of the fire without putting further focus on herself?

Samantha Downing’s latest, Too Old for This, brings her back to my Kindle for the first time since 2022.  In this tale, Downing has you pulling for the old lady, even though she really should be the villain of the piece.  Given my enjoyment of this book, I can only hope it won’t be another 3+ years before I come across Downing’s work again.

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52 Books in 52 Weeks – 2026 Edition

A new year is upon us, and it is time to once again set a goal of reading a book a week for the entire year, totaling 52 books in 52 weeks.

Last year, for the fifth straight year, I completed my goal, finishing the year with 61 books read.  Prior to that, I’d had a low point of eight books back in 2010 and a high point of 66 books.

While I am hoping to have a better balance between reading time and exercise this year, I’m going to give it another go.  I’ve got plenty of new books stocked up, both in the Kindle app on my iPad and actual physical books, not to mention my handy dandy library card, so I’ve got a good pile to start with.  As a reminder, the rules I am using are:

  • You can count a book as read as long as you have completed the book in 2026 and at least 50% of that reading takes place in 2026.
  • Any book counts as long as you’re not embarrassed to count it.
  • Poetry collections do indeed count.
  • Re-reading a book is okay as long as it isn’t done this year. (Reading Twilight twice in 2026 only counts as one read).
  • Audiobooks also count.

My first book of the year looks like it will be Too Old for This by Samantha Downing.  Here’s hoping 2026 is another good year when it comes to books.

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Book 64 (of 52) – Great Big Beautiful Life

Great Big Beautiful Life – Emily Henry

Alice thinks she has it made, having tracked down the long-missing former tabloid princess from one of the most storied families of the 20th Century and pitched her on writing her version of her family’s scandalous past.  Instead, she finds herself in competition with Hayden, a Pulitzer Prize winning author and Purdue alum who was invited down to the remote Georgia island to pitch the job as well.  While they both work on their separate pitches, they fall in love, knowing that this job could jeopardize their personal relationship.  And when Alice finds out the big secret that the heiress has been hiding, it does just that.

For the third year in a row, the Goodreads Choice winner for Favorite Romance has found its way onto my Kindle.  Emily Henry’s latest, Great Big Beautiful Life, isn’t your traditional romance novel, or at least not what I believe a traditional romance novel to be.  Its story shares some DNA with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, where an aging protagonist looks back at her life story through her own lens while ostensibly working with a young author.  This is now the third entry from Henry that I have enjoyed, so I may need to consider looking into more of her back catalog going forward.

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Prolific Authors – 22 Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We conclude today with the sole author I’ve read 22 times, a level unseen two years ago.

Jeffery Deaver

In 1999, the first entry of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme series, The Bone Collector, was adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.  Around that time, I picked up a paperback copy, which I read in 2000.  I slowly added additional titles as I would find them as remainders, picking up new hard covers for $3 or $4.


Things increased in 2015, when I started picking up titles on deals through the Amazon Kindle store or from the library, leading to 17 additional books added to my read bookshelf.  In August of last year, I finished off the Lincoln Rhyme series with The Broken Window.  There is still room to grow, as I have three remaining entries of his Kathryn Dance series, although my local library does not have them available in an electronic format, and what looks to be a new series where he has teamed up with Isabella Maldonado.

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Prolific Authors – 17 Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We continue today with our penultimate entry and the lone author I’ve read 17 times, who was at the top of this list two years ago.

Nancy Holder

My former most prolific author first came to my attention in 1998, when I read Halloween Rain, her first entry, along with Christopher Golden, in the series of books based on the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Twelve of her 17 entries, all of which are tie-ins to either Buffy and/or Angel, were read between 1998 and 2002.  After a nine-year layoff, she returned to my attention in 2011 with Carnival of Souls.

The Book Of Fours – Nancy Holder

Another five years went by, before she returned again with two books in 2016, one in 2018, and then, finally, one in 2021.  Seeing as I have depleted my backlog of Buffy novels, she’s likely to stay put for the foreseeable future, unless someone re-releases these cheaply on the Kindle.