Theater book series in reading order

by James Patterson

Edward Marston writes historical crime fiction, and the catalogue of 117 books runs to The Corpse on the Bristol Train (2026). Inspector Robert Colbeck, Elizabethan Theater, Domesday, Home Front Detective, Dillman & Masefield / Ocean Liner Mysteries, Christopher Redmayne, Captain Rawson and Bow Street Rivals are among the series. Nicholas Bracewell and Lord Westfield's Men appear in the subjects, together with theater, police work, railroad travel and World War I. Alan Saxon and Merlin Richards are further series, and Marston is still publishing.

Nancy Krulik writes for children, and the catalogue lists Grades 1-3 as the reading level. Series credited to Krulik include Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo, How I Survived Middle School, Magic Bone, Princess Pulverizer and Project Droid, and George Brown, Class Clown appears among the characters. Subjects range across magic, schools, friendship, dogs, robots and humorous stories. The most recent listed book is Fangs for Having Us! (2021), and the catalogue marks the output as dormant.

J.B. Priestley worked across novels, plays, criticism and travel writing. The early books are literary criticism: Figures In Modern Literature (1924), The English Comic Characters (1925) and a study of George Meredith (1926), before the fiction arrives with Adam In Moonshine (1927) and Benighted (1927). Drama, theatre, English literature and travel run through the subjects. The listing holds 81 titles dated 1922 to 1978, at a median of 197 pages, and the run reads as complete.

Ann M. Martin

446 books• 24 series

Ann Matthews Martin, born August 12, 1955, is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction and a Smith College graduate. The Baby-Sitters Club, first published in 1986, is the series Martin is known best for, and Martin remains involved with the series and its spin-offs. The catalogue lists 446 books, beginning with Inside Out and Bummer Summer in 1983. Related lines include Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries, California Diaries, Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, Main Street and Doll People. Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter: A Graphic Novel (2025) is the newest listed title.

Francine Pascal (née Rubin, 1932–2024) was an American author whose name is tied to the Sweet Valley books for young adults. Sweet Valley High anchored that collection, was adapted for television, and branched into spin-offs such as The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. The catalogue opens with Hangin' Out with Cici (1977) and also carries the Fearless series. Subjects include twins, sisters, high schools, friendship and dating. Most Sweet Valley books came out in the 1980s and 1990s, and several titles were re-released decades later.

Robertson Davies

31 books• 4 series

Robertson Davies was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist and professor, and the founding Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto. The fiction comes in trilogies: Salterton, opening with Tempest-Tost (1951); Deptford, opening with Fifth Business (1970) and continuing through The Manticore (1972) and World of Wonders (1975); Cornish; and Toronto. Thirty-one titles are catalogued, essays, criticism and diaries among them, ending with A Celtic Temperament: Robertson Davies as Diarist (2015).

Franklin W. Dixon is the author name on the Hardy Boys books, and the catalogue lists 473 titles under the Dixon name from 1927 to 2023. The Tower Treasure, The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill all date from 1927. Dixon series include Hardy Boys Casefiles, Hardy Boys Adventures, Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, Hardy Boys: Secret Files and Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery, plus the Ted Scott Flying Stories. Undercover Bookworms (2023) is the newest title.

Gertrude Chandler Warner (April 16, 1890 to August 30, 1979) was an American author who wrote mostly for children. Warner wrote the original book of The Boxcar Children, published in 1942, and the next 18 books in the series. Earlier catalogued titles include The House of Delight (1916) and The World in a Barn (1927), and Surprise Island (1949) and The Yellow House Mystery (1952) came after The Boxcar Children. Orphans, brothers and sisters, and mystery stories are among the subjects. The catalogue also carries Boxcar Children lines such as Adventures of Benny and Watch and Boxcar Children Great Adventure under Warner's name.

Judy Moody, a series that has sold more than 30 million copies, is what Megan McDonald is best known for. McDonald, born Megan Jo McDonald on February 28, 1959, is an American children's author and a former librarian, and also wrote the Julie Albright books for American Girl as well as picture books. The catalogue lists 113 McDonald books, from Is This a House for Hermit Crab? (1990) to The Big Bad Badgers (2025). Other series include Stink, Judy Moody & Friends, Beezy and Sisters Club, and the subjects include school, family life and brothers and sisters.

Ngaio Marsh

38 books• 3 series

Inspector Roderick Alleyn of the English police carries almost all of Ngaio Marsh's detective fiction. 38 catalogued books run from A Man Lay Dead (1934) to Money in the Morgue, taking in Enter a Murderer (1935), The Nursing Home Murder (1935), Death in Ecstasy (1936), Vintage Murder (1937) and Artists in Crime (1938). Marsh also published short stories and non-fiction. The catalogue is likely complete.

R.L. Stine

589 books• 64 series

Robert Lawrence Stine, born October 8, 1943, is an American novelist who writes horror fiction for children. Goosebumps, the series Stine created, sold more than 400 million copies in 35 languages and grew into a franchise of two television series, video games, comics and two feature films. Fear Street, Stine's horror sequence for teenagers, passed 80 million copies and was adapted for film. Stine has been called the Stephen King of children's literature. The listing runs to 590 titles, from How to Be Funny (1978), published as Jovial Bob Stine, to How to Train Your Dummy, scheduled for 2027.

Henning Mankell

35 books• 9 series

Kurt Wallander, a police detective in Sweden, is the figure Henning Mankell is known for. Mankell's catalogue holds 35 books, from A Bridge to the Stars (1990) to The Rock Blaster (2020), and takes in the Joel Gustafsson and Linda Wallander sequences, the Fredrik Welin novels, the Sofia Alface books, children's fiction and non-fiction. Faceless Killers (1991) and The Dogs of Riga (1992) are among the early titles.

Bruce Coville

132 books• 20 series

Bruce Coville has 132 books catalogued from The Foolish Giant (1978) to Aliens, Underwear, and Monsters (2022). Sarah's Unicorn (1979), Operation Sherlock (1986) and The Ghost in the Third Row (1987) are among the early titles. Series include My Teacher Is an Alien, Magic Shop, Unicorn Chronicles, I Was a 6th Grade Alien, Space Brat, Moongobble and Me, Nina Tanleven and A.I. Gang. Extraterrestrials, unicorns, monsters and humour fill the subjects. Coville, born May 16, 1950, writes young adult fiction and first published in 1977.

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) was an English comedian who wrote comic fiction for teenage girls. The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson sets down the diary of a teenager and her friends, the Ace Gang, starting with Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (1999); the first two books became the film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey follows Georgia's younger cousin. The catalogue holds 17 titles, ending with The Taming of the Tights (2013).

Elizabeth J. Duncan

14 books• 2 series

Elizabeth J. Duncan is a Canadian writer of cozy mysteries. Penny Brannigan, the series set in North Wales, is her main work: its opening book, The Cold Light of Mourning (2009), drew nominations for both the Agatha Award and the Arthur Ellis Award; A Small Hill to Die On took the Bony Blithe Award in 2013; and Never Laugh As a Hearse Goes By was shortlisted for that award in 2014. Shakespeare in the Catskills is the second series, and 14 books are catalogued through On Deadly Tides (2020).

Daisy Meadows is the name on the Rainbow Magic children's books, a fantasy line whose subjects include fairies, goblins, Jack Frost and two girls, Kirsty Tate and Rachel Walker. The catalogue opens in 2003 with colour-fairy titles such as Ruby the Red Fairy, Amber the Orange Fairy and Fern the Green Fairy, and runs to Nur the Vlogger Fairy (2023). Sub-series include the Weather, Jewel, Party, Pet Keeper, Dance, Ocean and Showtime Fairies. Magic Animal Friends appears under the same name.

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

131 books• 11 series

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, born in 1933, wrote 131 catalogued books for children and young adults across half a century. Shiloh, a quartet of children's novels, won the Newbery Medal in 1992, and the Alice McKinley series became one of the most frequently challenged sets of books of the early 21st century. The Boy/Girl Battle, Bessledorf Mysteries, Witch Saga, Cat Pack and Roxie and the Hooligans fill out the list, which runs from To Make a Wee Moon (1969) to Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost (2018). Family life, schools, friendship and siblings are the constant subjects, at a median of 154 pages.

Rosie Thomas is the pen name of Janey King, a British journalist and romance novelist born in Denbigh, Wales, in 1947. Janey King has twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year award and ranks among the 100 authors most borrowed from United Kingdom libraries. The catalogue opens with Celebration and Love's Choice in 1982, and later novels include The White Dove (1986), Bad Girls Good Women (1988) and All My Sins Remembered (1992). Female friendship, London and family life appear in the subjects, and Illusionists is a listed series.

Peter Lerangis

93 books• 27 series

Peter Lerangis, born Peter Duncan Lerangis in Brooklyn, New York, in 1955, is an American author of children's and young adult fiction. Lerangis is best known for the Seven Wonders series and for work on the 39 Clues series. Some catalogued titles, such as License to Drive (1988), appeared under the name A.L. Singer. Series include Abracadabra, Spy X, Drama Club, Max Tilt, Throwback, Antarctica and Cerulean. Subjects include adventure, fantasy, mystery, twins, dinosaurs, theater and Atlantis, and the newest title is Out of Time (2021).

Emily Arnold McCully, born July 1, 1939, is an American writer and illustrator known chiefly for children's books. Mirette on the High Wire, which McCully both wrote and illustrated, won the 1993 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration. The catalogue lists 88 books, from Maxie (1970) to 1, 2, 3, Pull! (2023), and the Mirette and Grandma series are among them. Subject tags include stories without words, mice, cats, bears, grandmothers, friendship, history and biography.

Max Beerbohm

44 books

Max Beerbohm, born Henry Maximilian Beerbohm on 24 August 1872, was an English essayist, parodist and caricaturist who signed his drawings Max. Beerbohm reviewed drama for the Saturday Review from 1898 to 1910, then moved to Rapallo in Italy, and died on 20 May 1956. Zuleika Dobson (1911) is the one novel. The 44 catalogued titles open with A Defence of Cosmetics (1896) and take in Caricatures of Twenty-Five Gentlemen (1896), A Christmas Garland (1912) and Fifty Caricatures (1913), with The Works of Max Beerbohm collected in 2018. Humour, theatre criticism and cartooning define the subject list.

Thornton Wilder

41 books

Thornton Wilder wrote plays and novels and took three Pulitzer Prizes: one for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), two for the plays Our Town (1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth. A U.S. National Book Award followed for the novel The Eighth Day. The catalogue begins with The Cabala (1926) and holds 41 entries, one-act collections such as The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act among them, with reissues carrying the listing to 2020. Wilder lived from 1897 to 1975.

Mikhail Bulgakov

27 books

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. The Master and Margarita, published only after Bulgakov's death, is ranked among the great novels of the twentieth century. The White Guard is another of his novels, and the plays Ivan Vasilievich, Flight and The Days of the Turbins belong to his stage work. The catalogue lists 27 books in English, from The Fatal Eggs (1923) and A Dog's Heart to A Country Doctor's Notebook and a Molière biography.

Lisa Fiedler writes children's fiction. The catalogue holds 15 books dated between 1998 and 2019, from Lucky Me (1998) to We Walked the Sky (2019). Three series stand under the Fiedler name: Mouseheart, Stagestruck and Ages of Oz. Recorded subjects include witches, friendship, twins, rats, theatre, schools and detective and mystery stories, with the Olsen twins listed among the fictitious characters. The listing also carries Mary-Kate & Ashley franchise titles, among them Starring in Switching Goals (1999) and The Case of the Cheerleading Camp Mystery (2000).