In the fall, I purchased the complete set of the Girls of Canby Hall books.
My plan was to read them immediately after finishing the original 58 Hardy Boys books, but I decided instead to read the Hardy Boys Digest series. Soon after I began reading the Hardy Boys Digests, I decided that I wanted to compare and contrast Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as both series have evolved over the years. This means that I decided that I will read the Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series and then the Hardy Boys Adventures series immediately after I finish reading the Hardy Boys Digest series.
I had already purchased nine of the Hardy Boys Adventures in hardcover editions in December when I saw a wholesale lot of remaindered books on eBay.
I just purchased the two most recent Hardy Boys Adventures books from Amazon, so now I have the complete set of what has been published so far.
I held off for the last couple of months hoping to get a set of Undercover Brothers cheap, but books never do show up when I need them.
I decided in early April to set a goal to read 300 books this year. At that point, I was on track to read 282 books. I sped up my pace, and I am now on track to read slightly more than 300 books. This means that I am progressing rather quickly through the Hardy Boys Digests, and I need to build the Undercover Brothers set in advance of needing them. I project that I will be finished with the Hardy Boys Digests before the end of June, and that isn't so far off.
This is what I have so far, purchased from three different sellers.
Since time is beginning to draw short, I went to Thriftbooks.com and purchased every title I could find that I had not already acquired. There were two titles, #19 Foul Play and #20 Feeding Frenzy, that were not available on Thriftbooks. Obviously I could purchase both books individually elsewhere. However, Foul Play presented a dilemma, since unfortunately a Hardy Boys Casefiles book is also titled Foul Play. I would have no way to guarantee that I would get the Undercover Brothers book instead of the Casefiles book, especially since most sellers who have one available are the volume sellers who pay no attention to detail. I then realized that I could solve the problem by purchasing Foul Play new from Amazon.
Problem solved. I have not made the purchase yet, primarily because I am too cheap to purchase Amazon Prime or to pay for shipping from Amazon, so I group items together and always get free shipping.
I will order the last two Undercover Brothers with the Nancy Drew Diaries book that is set to be released on May 10 and with another Ted Wilford book that I need. And of course Amazon will wait until around May 15 to ship the order to punish me for getting free shipping, but that's okay. I don't need the books for a couple of months.
In case you didn't know, the Ted Wilford series is being reprinted. So far, Wildside Press has released five of them, and all 15 will be reprinted. The books are being reprinted with permission of the Norvin Pallas family.
I have also purchased two short series which I will probably read sometime between now and the end of June during my reading of the Hardy Boys Digest series. If a series is short, it will not break my momentum of reading the Hardy Boys.
First, I purchased the entire Winn and Lonny series.
Second, I purchased the Morgan Bay mystery series, which were published as school readers.
I have also begun purchasing the Sweet Dreams books as I find them.
Ah, the 1980s. The complete set of Sweet Dreams set consists of over 200 books, so I don't have very many of them.
This is my plan on what I intend to read and in what order.
Hardy Boys Digest series along with Wynn and Lonny/Morgan Bay
Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers series
Nancy Drew Diaries #11 and #12
Hardy Boys Adventure series
Girls of Canby Hall series
The Sweet Dreams books (This one is not definite.)
As of right now I am not intending to read the Hardy Boys Casefiles set this year, although I do own the complete set. I could always change my mind and decide to read them.
This will take me through September or October and a total of around 250 of the 300 books I intend to read this year. I can do it.
4 comments:
I admire your commitment to reading series books. I adore them myself. You have amazing ambition where reading is concerned. I'm completely in awe of it.
I remember reading the Girls of Canby Hall and Sweet Dreams series in the 1980s, and still have a few. Just FYI in case you've never read the Sweet Dreams series. They are basically a series in name only. They are completely separate stories and were basically clean teen romances. Frankly, I wish there were books for teens this uncomplicated today. They are numbered, just like romance series are numbered today, but the order and fact that they are a series only indicates that they are similar stories by the same publisher. You could read number 1 or 200 and not be lost. They were basically fun fluffy tales with girls who had high school problems that 80s girls like myself thought we had - no date to the dance, homework trouble, friend trouble, etc.
Your last sentence summarizes exactly why I'm interested in the Sweet Dreams books. I did read just a few of them back in the late 1980s. I'm not sure how many, but it was probably fewer than a dozen titles. I remember Laurie's Song.
I loved Sweet Valley High and still revisit them occasionally. I never had any Girls of Canby Hall books. Strangely, I don't recall even knowing that they existed. I read the first one last year and liked it enough to build the set. I know I will enjoy them.
I read Teen Witch last year, which was new to me. They have the same carefree feel of Sweet Valley High and similar books.
I just got done reading your Teen Witch post, made me realize that I never read that 4th one. I loved the third one set in the Civil War.
Those Sweet Dreams books are intriguing, I love fluffy 80s books. Are they easy to find?
Some of the earliest Sweet Dreams titles are easy to find, but I'd say that it's overall not easy to build a set. I have found a couple of bulk lots on eBay that had 10 to 15 titles in them. Thriftbooks is a good source, although the searches have to be done by individual title. This Wikipedia page has a list of the titles and authors. You can get free shipping with an order of $10 or more. The books start at $3.59 each, so three books will get free shipping.
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