Stay home, sane and read a book series

Binge-watching is all well and good, but how about binge-reading? As many of us adjust to staying at home to aid coronavirus containment efforts, here are some suggestions from Seattle Times features staffers for books that come in multiples; you may not need to leave home until summer.

— Megan Burbank, outdoors/general assignment reporter

 “Dublin Murder Squad” series by Tana French

Last year, I cut back seriously on my true-crime habit after serving as a juror on a six-week criminal trial, which finally forced me to accept my long-simmering misgivings about the lack of real reporting and the abundance of fearmongering propagated by the True Crime Podcast Industrial Complex; some pleasures really are guilty. But I’m still reading and watching mysteries, and Tana French is like the Sally Rooney of crime writers, crafting worlds of intrigue in a very Irish setting, in a series of books featuring loosely linked characters. My favorite in the “Dublin Murder Squad” series is “The Trespasser,” which features hard-boiled detective Antoinette Conway investigating the murder of a young woman with a strange past; it manages to juxtapose real intrigue with a commentary on the institutional racism, sexism and overall corruption within a decidedly unglamorous homicide-investigation unit, where Antoinette is an anomaly as a biracial woman. She’s one of the most sharply written characters I’ve read in recent memory, and that’s what French does best: She writes murder mysteries populated by characters who feel real. She eludes clichés and depicts a world of crime where criminals are afforded humanity and detectives are fallible rather than saintly. Her books aren’t necessarily easy reads, but maybe reading about murder shouldn’t be. It’s also hard to stop reading them once you start.

— Trevor Lenzmeier, travel and books coordinator

“White Noise,” “Underworld” and “The Angel Esmeralda” by Don DeLillo

If you want relief from existential dread — the result of life in uncertain times, among disease, climate catastrophe, nuclear proliferation, dystopian technological advances and more — DeLillo might not be your best pick. But if fictional anxiety, perversely enough, abates your real-life stress, few do it better than cult icon DeLillo. In his decadeslong career, he has covered everything from the aforementioned subjects to family, economics, language, politics, sports and more, all tinged with an eerie discomfort that seems to fill the air like the black chemical cloud and the titular static that drones over the airwaves in “White Noise,” my personal favorite by DeLillo. These three selections aren’t a series, but “Underworld” is more than 800 pages and “The Angel Esmeralda” is a collection of nine unique stories published between 1979 and 2011, so it’s close enough. Either way, pretty much anything by DeLillo is perfect for the recent morose mood around Seattle.

— Stefanie Loh, features editor

“The Clifton Chronicles” by Jeffrey Archer

“The Century Trilogy” by Ken Follett

I’ve always enjoyed sweeping epics that chronicle the lives of a character or a family through generations, set against the backdrop of historical events. If you like those, too, these two book series check all the boxes. Think of them as the literary equivalent of binge-watching a dramatic TV series.

Archer’s seven-book series begins in 1920 with “Only Time Will Tell,” where we meet Harry Clifton, a working-class English boy who is told his father died in the Great War. Of course, as family sagas go, the tale of who Harry’s father really is reveals itself much later on. There’s lots of properly drawn-out suspense over the course of seven books that take the reader through WWII, Harry’s move to the United States and the Cold War era. We’re introduced to Harry’s love interest and eventually his children, who anchor the later books as Archer shifts the focus to the next generation.

Follett’s “Century Trilogy” is similar in the sense that the three books span years, taking the reader through the 20th century and all its landmark historic events. The difference is that Follett’s trilogy masterfully follows the fates and fortunes of five international families — American, German, Russian, English and Welsh — of different social standing through the decades, and skillfully weaving their storylines through the generations. The scope is remarkable, and if you’re a history lover who enjoys reading about how momentous events can change people’s lives at the most basic of levels, these books take on an almost oral history-type of feel; as if a good friend is taking you on a tour through their very action-filled family history.

— Moira Macdonald, books/movies critic

Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith

It’s an unpopular opinion, I know, to state that I wish J.K. Rowling had spent less time on “Harry Potter” and more time writing detective novels — but I’ll say it anyway: This four-book series written by Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, is better than Hogwarts any day. As the series progresses, we’ve learned more about its two central figures, London detective Cormoran Strike and his associate Robin Ellacott: their pasts, their secrets, their sometimes-prickly friendship, their attraction that they, for the most part, don’t discuss. And along the way we’ve solved some mysteries and reveled in Rowling/Galbraith’s knack for character detail, atmosphere and friendship.