How to catch up on a series before the next book

Three ways to catch up, and what each costs

Step 1: Find out what you actually forgot

Before choosing, test yourself for two minutes. Without looking anything up, write down where the main characters were at the end of the last book, who was on whose side, and what was left unresolved. If you can fill most of it in, you only need a light refresher. If the page is blank, you need a proper recap.

This also tells you which characters to look out for. Circle the names you could not place.

Step 2: Choose a recap that does not spoil anything

Kindle has a feature for exactly this situation. Amazon's Recaps give "previously on" style refreshers for books you have already read in a series, on Kindle devices, the Kindle iOS app and series pages on Amazon.com, for thousands of best-selling English-language Kindle ebooks, in the US. If you read book one on Kindle, check there first; it is free.

If you read the earlier book in print or as an audiobook, Magic Bookmark can help when that book is a supported title. Its recap runs up to wherever you set your bookmark, so a bookmark on the last page covers the whole book, and version 1.1 added a flow for finishing a book and moving on to the next one. One credit covers one book; see the Magic Bookmark page for the pricing.

For anything else, the safest recap is the book itself: skim the last quarter, reading chapter openings and endings closely and the middles quickly.

Step 3: Watch the spoiler traps

• Series wikis: a character page usually covers every book, including ones you have not read.
• The next book's blurb and reviews: they often reveal how the previous book ended. That is fine if you finished it, not if you are catching up on a book you abandoned.
• Search autocomplete: typing a character's name can surface "dies" or "betrayal" before you press enter.
• Front matter in sequels: some character lists in later books describe events from earlier ones. Read it after you catch up, not before.
• Fan videos titled "everything you need to know": many cover the whole series, not just book one.

Step 4: Time-box it to one evening

Catching up can quietly turn into a reread you never finish, and then you never start the sequel. Give it a fixed slot, one evening or one weekend morning, and a timer. A desk timer or visual timer helps you see the slot running out.

When the slot ends, start the new book even if you feel only 80 percent caught up. Most sequels reintroduce the important people in their first chapters, and your memory comes back faster once the story is moving again.

Step 5: Leave a note for next time

Series readers do this every year or two, so make it easier on future you. When you finish a book in a series, write one line on a series tracker: the book number, the date you finished, and where things stood, in your own words. Keep it inside the cover of the first book. Next time, that line may be all the recap you need.

Keep a cast list going across books too: copy over the returning characters when you start the next one.

A sample catch-up evening

1. Five minutes: the blank-page test from Step 1.
2. Ten minutes: read a recap that covers the previous book (Kindle Recaps or Magic Bookmark if your format and title are covered).
3. Thirty minutes: skim the last two or three chapters of the previous book.
4. Five minutes: update your cast list with the names you circled.
5. Then start the new book and read the first chapter before bed.

If the series is long

For a series with five or more books, do not try to catch up on all of them. Catch up on the most recent book in detail and the rest by your own notes or a one-paragraph refresher. For tracking long series over years, bestbooktrackerapps.com compares the trackers that handle series well.