The Laundry Files reading order

A plan for the whole series

13 volumes, 4,899 pages, about 90 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 4 months.

• The series is still running; the last volume came out in 2025. You will wait for the next one anyway, so no need to rush.

Stages

6 stages, with 5 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around March 23, 2027, about 4 weeks later than in one go.

1. 1
   Stage 120 habout 4 weeksby November 24, 2026

   • 1. The Atrocity Archives2004 · 336 pages · 6 h
   • 2. The Jennifer Morgue2006 · 418 pages · 8 h
   • 3. The Fuller Memorandum2010 · 320 pages · 6 h
2. BreakMaus · Art Spiegelman · 295 pp. · score 9.05 h, by December 3, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
3. 2
   Stage 214 h19 daysby December 22, 2026

   • 4. The Apocalypse Codex2012 · 386 pages · 7 h
   • 5. The Rhesus Chart2014 · 384 pages · 7 h
4. Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.82 h, by December 26, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
5. 3
   Stage 315 h20 daysby January 15, 2027

   • 6. The Annihilation Score2015 · 416 pages · 8 h
   • 7. The Nightmare Stacks2016 · 400 pages · 7 h
6. Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.42 h, by January 19, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
7. 4
   Stage 414 h18 daysby February 6, 2027

   • 8. The Delirium Brief2017 · 384 pages · 7 h
   • 9. The Labyrinth Index2018 · 354 pages · 6 h
8. Short breakAnimal Farm · George Orwell · 128 pp. · score 8.32 h, by February 10, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
9. 5
   Stage 514 h18 daysby March 1, 2027

   • 10. Dead Lies Dreaming2020 · 384 pages · 7 h
   • 11. Quantum of Nightmares2022 · 356 pages · 7 h
10. Short breakThe Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde · 102 pp. · score 8.22 h, by March 4, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
11. 6
    Stage 614 h19 daysby March 23, 2027

    • 12. Season of Skulls2023 · 384 pages · 7 h
    • 13. A Conventional Boy2025 · ≈ 377 pages · 7 h
12. The end of the series

    March 23, 2027

We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.

≈ next to a page count: a volume with no page count in our data is counted at this series’s average.

Does the series hold up

Shape of the series: uneven. Scores jump by 0.5 points with no clear direction.

Best volume: The Delirium Brief (8.1, 102 ratings). Weakest: The Atrocity Archives (7.6). The series is not finished; the last volume came out in 2025. The last volume (7.9) scores close to the series average or above it.