"Another volume" or "Give me more!"

Answer of the (yester-) day
Lately I started reading

A Son of the Middle Border

 by Hamlin Garland

which is not a Prize-winner and I hope to be finished with it by the end of the year. The inclined reader might ask: Why now is he reading books that are noncompetitive, when there are 97 Prize-winners to read?
Thanks to this inclined reader, I'm able to pose a set of inevitable question:

How should I deal with Prize-winners, that consist of more than one volume?

As I see it, there are mainly two ways: Either to write about each volume seperately or to write about the work as a whole. The latter seems the better, even though, it'll take longer until I can cast the final vote on it. Therefore, if the winner consists of more than one volume (as will be the case right at the beginning with Julia Ward Howe - 2 vol.), you will have to prove some patience, but will get the whole picture!

The second question is a bit more complicated and leads to why I read A son of the Middle Border.

If only one book of a multi-volume biography entered the competition for the Prize (and of course won), should I read the whole set?

Take for example A Daughter of the Middle Border by Hamlin Garland, which was awarded the Prize in 1922. It is the prosecution of A Son of the Middle Border, which Garland wrote in 1917. I decided to read both, to be able to put the winning book in its proper surroundings. That might of course lead to a multiplication of books to read, so it's just a try.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to deal with the questions posed, please let me know!

Question of the day:
How much of the information on a person, contained in his or her biography can you memorize?