Musing Mondays on Series

Do you prefer to read stand-alone books, or books in series? Do you stick with a series the whole way through or stop after the first installment? Are there any particular series you enjoy?

I wish I can make this answer very interesting with recommendations on series, but I haven’t read enough to be conversant. The Thursday Next Series, which set in Jasper Fforde’s parallel universe of England as a republic, is a set of comic fantasy and alternate history novels. The debut of the series, The Eyre Affair, still sits sullenly on my bookcase with the bookmark inserted not too far away from the front jacket. That a detective is pursuing a master criminal in Jane Eyre is very intriguing but I cannot get into the book. I bow out of Harry Potter series at Book 4, was it Book 5 (?) for the exactly opposite reason: the books are packed with too many minute details, so dense that I cannot manage with all the facts. I have forgotten what I have read by the time I’m halfway through the book. I find the movies more satisfying. Which leads to my endearing series by the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. My first book of hers was And Then There Was None, which belongs to the Hercule Poirot series.I am about half way through the Miss Jane Marple series. I tend to read more stand-alones. Series is difficult to keep up. I get overwhelmed if I discover a new series and notice I have to read from the very beginning.