For several years I’ve had a rule to not read the same author/series within five books of each other. There isn’t really a reason for it. I just came up with it one day and have largely stayed true.
Not today. I’m running out of time in 2020 and I decided last night to stick with what I know and who I know. I know what to expect when reading Robert Crais. His books usually aren’t too lengthy and never leave me disappointed. So I’m reading three in a row in my dash to the finish line. I still may not reach my goal, but there’s no harm in trying.
Do you have any rules like mine?
Johnny Reads 
I’m really curious about your rule applying to series… do you mean that you read five books between say books 1 and 2 of a series, or did I misunderstand? When I’m reading a series for the first time, assuming it has a continuing storyline I care about, I’m often eager to read the books back to back so I remember what’s going on. It’s one of the challenges I have trying to read a series that isn’t finished yet because the wait between books gives me time to forget what happened earlier.
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Yep. Five books between them. The only series I read in close proximity all the way through was The Hunger Games right before the first movie came out. But even then I stuck with the rule. What I’ve found is most stories written today can be read on their own and it isn’t required to read them back to back to keep up. And the series I’m reading are usually (not always) mysteries/detectives. So they really don’t have to be read back to back if there’s a new case to start the book.
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That makes sense (the mystery thing). I read lots of fantasy and there’s a tendency for trilogies to rely having on the previous books.
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