Keira's Bookmark

Top Ten Tuesday is a bookish meme originally created by The Broke and the Bookish and currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is ‘satisfying book series’ and I realised that I don’t actually have enough completed series to make a top ten.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely completed more than 10 series in my lifetime, but most were as a child, and some I definitely wouldn’t consider ‘satisfying’. Instead, I decided to focus on authors that I (mostly) find extremely satisfying. I wouldn’t consider them auto-buy authors (do people still use that turn?) since I never really like to blindly buy a book, but they’re definitely auto-on-my-radar authors – I will always at least look at anything they release.

Even this was a little difficult to think of five though, to be completely honest, so I’ve instead made it 5 + 5 authors that I think could become like that given some time and a couple more books. Some of them are also authors of classics where I have/would like to read everything they’ve written (or most of everything).

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Becky Chambers – I’ve loved both the Monk and Robot series (A Psalm for the Wild-Built; A Prayer for the Crown-Shy) and her standalone novel(la) To Be Taught, If Fortunate – 5, 4 and 5 stars respectively. I’m very excited to start her longer Wayfarer series, which has 4 books, starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. If you like immensely readable sci-fi with soul and a slightly literary feel, I highly, highly recommend. You can read my review of To Be Taught, If Fortunate here.

Ilona Andrews – This husband-wife author duo is my go to for a fun fantasy with a good helping of romance. Some of their books are more fantasy-with-a-romantic-subplot, some are more fantasy romance, but all of them are so, so good. And they have lots of series – some finished, some not finished but with regular releases, some spin-offs to keep you going when you finish the main series – that are perfect for a fun read (or reread). I whip out the Andrews books at least once or twice a year for a reread (usually when I’m suffering from a reading slump) and I’m super excited for the start of a new series next year.

Patrick Süskind – The first of the classics authors, and this is an author where I’ve actually read all of his published works, I believe. Perfume is his best work by a long, long way, but it was so good that it made me read all of his other works despite some of them not being nearly as good. He has about four or so other works aside from Perfume and most of them were around 3 stars for me to Perfume‘s 5 stars, but only one did I not really enjoy. And all of them are well-written. Even if I can’t convince you to read his other works – please give Perfume a go at some point in your life.

George Orwell – It might seem a bit strange to include George Orwell and then not have either Animal Farm or 1984 next to his name, but I’ve not decided how I feel about Orwell’s fiction yet. I read Animal Farm in school and I know I should read 1984 – but I feel like we’re kind of living it a little bit at the moment which puts me off. He also has other novels which I hope to give a go at some point.

But what I am sure about, is that I adore Orwell’s non-fiction writing. I read some of his essays in my sixth form English Literature class and then also read a lot that was not assigned for the class because I loved it so much. Next up, I’d like to try one of his book-length non-fiction works such as Down and Out in Paris and London or The Road to Wigan Pier.

Andy Weir – If you know anything about Andy Weir’s works, you’ll realise I’ve put a very unnecessary question mark here, since he does actually have three traditionally published works. However, his second work, Artemis, has received a lot of mixed reviews, and I kind of don’t want to put myself off what he releases in the future. Maybe at some point I’ll go back and read it once I’ve read a couple more of his works and am more secure in my confidence for his works though.

Apart from that, The Martian and Project Hail Mary are two of my favourite books ever, and are what got me into sci-fi (I did have a dystopian phase as a pre-teen, but had since massively gone off the whole genre – I still don’t like dystopia, but I love myself a spacey sci-fi). Both books made me cry – which, yes, is absolutely a good sign. So I’m manifesting many more releases please.

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Lu Xun – Considered the ‘father’ of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun is a massive name in the 20th Century Chinese literature scene, especially when it comes to short stories. I first read his short story A Madman’s Diary (aka The Diary of a Madman) in my final year of my bachelor’s and I’ve since read a couple more stories during my master’s. I don’t universally love all of his short stories – that would be a hard feat to pull off – but I do really appreciate his writing. I have a couple of collections of his works, including a compete collection of his fiction writing, so I’ll definitely be slowly working my way through them.

Kazuo Ishiguro – I first read An Artist of the Floating World a few years back and I absolutely loved it. I also quite enjoyed some of his poetry that was written as lyrics for an American Jazz artist, and thought The Remains of the Day was pretty good as well. I’m not sure I’ll read everything he has written, as some of the stories feel a bit dystopian/psychological for my tastes, but I definitely want to read more of his works – currently I’m particularly drawn to his short stories and A Pale View of Hills.

Fredrik Backman – This is an author I really liked as a child (not that his books are for children) and recently rediscovered through And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer – which made me cry for an hour straight (the length of the audiobook) on a public bus. As a child, I really liked his novel My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises, so I’ll probably try some of his other novels now, and I’d also like to read his non-fiction work Things My Son Needs to Know about the World.

Tan Twan Eng – I’ve only read one of his works so far (The Garden of Evening Mists) but I absolutely loved it. I’ll probably still be considering the topics and summaries of his books before deciding to read or not, since I’ve only read one of his works, but his books are definitely ones I’m always going to check when they’re released.

Han Kang – Interestingly, my favourite works of Korean fiction so far are not predominantly works by Han Kang, and I had considered a different author for this position as well. However, Han Kang is an author where I have yet to dislike any of her works and I’m very intrigued by some of the ones I haven’t read – I also own a lot of her works. So far I’ve read perhaps some of her least well-known works: Greek Lessons and The White Book. Greek Lessons was pretty good, but The White Book was excellent. Of her other books, the one that is the highest on my priority list is Human Acts.

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One thing I did notice in making this list is how many of the authors were men despite works by men usually not making up even half of my reading in a year. For example, my reading this year is currently sitting at 59.7% books by women and last year was 63.1%. So I think maybe one of my goals for next year needs to be reading more of women authors’ backlist to maybe find some more women to add this list. There a couple of contenders, so maybe keep an eye out when 2026 goal post time comes around to see who makes an appearance.

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What authors do you love enough to read everything they write?

And if you do better about actually finishing series than me and managed to come up with a decent list, please link it below so I can go and get some recommendations!

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Keira x