Warning re. Rankin duly noted, Tharg. Thanks for the ‘heads up’.
In fact, I think I should just carry on with the serieses (the plural of ‘series, obviously) that I’m already committed to for a while, plus actually read at least some of the other books that I haven’t quite got to – my new copy of Shogun is looking at me with an air of neglect, clearly unaware that it’s only here because my previous copy finally fell to pieces due to repeat reading. Ditto All the Rivers Run and Scouting for Boys. Plus I now have the Bookman Histories to navigate, too. 🙂