Personally, I almost cannot stand reading books out of order. If I am at the bookstore and a series looks interesting I will either wait for the first book to come in or order it online. And the most likely thing to happen is I will skip a book if I don't like it; and that has only happened once. And this also brings into the mix, should you read the books in order of publication? Or should you read them in order of the chronological events? For example, the Malazan Book of the Fallen...I doubt I would have loved it as much as I do now if I had read it out of order, just because everything in each book relies a lot on what has happened in the previous book. The only minor exceptions based on technicalities is the beginning couple because they are relatively parallel stories happening at the same time. But even then...I do not recommend skipping things.
The Harry Potter series, I love it to death...except for the second book. For some reason I just absolutely hate the Chamber of Secrets, and after the first 3 or 4 times of reading the series every time after that I just skip the second book. Out of all the books that I own, this is the only one that I will skip. And I really cannot quite understand what it is that I so dislike about it. Am I the only one out there that is this unexplainable dislike for that one book?
Then there is the case with Tamora Pierce in which I had read her lioness quartet, and then I jumped a series ahead to the Protector of the Small and decided to go back to the Immortal Series. But I personally do not count that because each of the series can be read alone and be thoroughly enjoyable. Now other than this, there are three exceptions to my whole "Always read in order" and that is the Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey (and in later books her son), The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett, and the other series that Tamora Pierce has.
The second big series that I have portions of by Tamora Pierce is the Circle, and the Circle Opens. I had read one of the books at the library, loved it and went and bought one from that series. Then it dawned on me....I was reading the second series in that batch of books. So I stopped where I was (3/4 books read) then I went and bought some from the first series...and then I was poor because I came to college. And I refuse to read those books until I have all of them so I can truly appreciate them in all their chronological glory.
The Dragonriders of Pern is one of those series of books that is LONG and it can be quite confusing figuring out which book to go to next. You can either read it in publication order, which would then mean you are bouncing around in the timeline, or you can attempt to read in the order of events that is happening. When I first started getting into the series I read the books as I bought them, which meant out of order. As I started buying more of them I stockpiled the books, looked up a neat little time line and arranged them like that (which is still hard because time wise some of the books overlap each other). It was an interesting experience to read them as the world developed from the writers perspective; but I definitely prefer reading them in the order of events; that is just how I roll. And I guess you can technically read them every which way if you are that kind of person, but I would not recommend it.
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Now the Discworld Series....that is a completely different beast. It is literally the only series that I have in my possession that I have really honestly have not gone to the effort of ordering them because you really can read them in any order you want and thoroughly enjoy them; although I guess this stands with the whole idea of if you are good at keeping timelines and events straight in your head to avoid any confusion. It has also not helped that between me and my older sister we own just about all of those books and have them split in half so if I wanted to read in order I would have to raid her bookshelf. Those Discworld books I love because if I am in the mood to read a certain kind of book, I can generally find one that fits my mood. And I also think a part of me would probably lose that enjoyment if I went out of my way to order them. So right now they are just arranged roughly in the order of being bought.
One a slightly different side note...The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I had watched the Lord of the Rings before reading either of them. Then my sister loaned me those books, on the first read through I hated the Hobbit and could not finish it, then I read the Lord of the Rings and loved that series. I read it a couple of times, and only because it takes me longer than normal to read them because they are very heavy books in the sense that there is just A LOT to take in. I did not return to the Hobbit book until after I had read the Silmarillion, the Unfinished Tales, and then watching the Hobbit movie. On this second read through, despite movie discrepancies, I loved it the second time I read it. I think it partly had to do with having watched the movies for Lord of the Rings, and it being so dark and a lot of the other books I had been reading at the time being on the darker side that the Hobbit with it's vaguely lighthearted feel to it just was not working for me. And even if I had not seen the movie I would have read it a second time because my boyfriend got me the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings box set on accident not knowing I already owned Lord of the Rings...and I did not want him to feel bad. However, it all worked out in the end.
Do you guys have any book series you enjoy out of order? Or will you always refuse to read them unless you can go from beginning to end with no jumping around?
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