I do like to read Book Series and try to read one every year. Book Series that have been reviewed at We Need to Talk About Books include the ones listed below. Most of them have reviews for each individual book in the series. For some, the series have been reviewed as a whole. Some are a novel-and-sequel so are technically not ‘series’, but I have included them here.
The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
A trilogy of Swedish crime novels, they are one of the among the best-selling book series in history, catalysed a thirst for Nordic Noir and have been adapted multiple times. The three novels – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – are reviewed together here.
The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott
The Raj Quartet is Paul Scott’s masterpiece. It covers the last few years of the British Raj in India, when the Second World War and the Indian Independence movement where at their height, from the point of view of British serving and living in India. Also included is Scott’s follow-up to the Raj Quartet, Staying On, which won the Booker Prize.
| Book 1 | The Jewel in the Crown |
| Book 2 | The Day of the Scorpion |
| Book 3 | The Towers of Silence |
| Book 4 | A Division of the Spoils |
| Follow Up | Staying On |
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
The Cairo Trilogy is the masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. A family saga set in a changing Egypt between the World Wars.
| Book 1 | Palace Walk |
| Book 2 | Palace of Desire |
| Book 3 | Sugar Street |
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia are a series of fantasy novels set in the land of Narnia. Though most popular with children, the novels are infused with Christian and Pagan themes and symbols. The seven novels are reviewed as a whole here.
The Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh
The Ibis Trilogy is a set of historical fiction novels featuring disparate characters swept together in events leading to the First Opium War.
| Book 1 | Sea of Poppies |
| Book 2 | River of Smoke |
| Book 3 | Flood of Fire |
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Ever popular, through multiple iterations, in novel form The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy comprises five novels by Douglas Adams. Also included is the authorised sequel And Another Thing… .
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
A high benchmark for historical novels, Robert Graves’ I, Claudius and its sequel, Claudius the God, are fictional memoirs of the Roman Emperor Claudius.
| Novel | I, Claudius |
| Sequel | Claudius the God |
Theseus by Mary Renault
Known for her novels set in ancient Greece, Mary Renault’s Theseus novels are a retelling of the classical myth of Theseus, King of Athens.
| Novel | The King Must Die |
| Sequel | The Bull From the Sea |
The Cromwell Trilogy by Hilary Mantel
The Cromwell Trilogy is Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed historical fiction series on the life of Thomas Cromwell. Set in the midst of religious, political and popular revolutions in Tudor England, it features unforgettable scenes between Cromwell and its other major characters such as Henry VIII, Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and others. The first two novels in the series, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, each won the Booker Prize in 2009 and 2012 respectively, while the third novel, The Mirror and the Light was nominated in 2020.
| Book 1 | Wolf Hall |
| Book 2 | Bring Up the Bodies |
| Book 3 | The Mirror and the Light |
The Passage Trilogy by Justin Cronin
When The Passage came out, it seemed to be a case of a writer publishing the right book at the right time – a post-apocalyptic vampire novel just when such things were very much trending. But it is a long novel and arguably leaves things not only unfinished but really barely started. Justin Cronin did have a plan and readers who kept faith and persisted were rewarded with a well-written, well-conceived, trilogy.
| Book 1 | The Passage |
| Book 2 | The Twelve |
| Book 3 | The City of Mirrors |
The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart is rightly considered one of the great novels of the twentieth century. But it is also part of a trilogy. Not a trilogy of recurring characters and an overarching story but of a theme covering three stages of colonialism and post-colonialism worth reading in its entirety.
| Book 1 | Things Fall Apart |
| Book 2 | Arrow of God |
| Book 3 | No Longer at Ease |
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