Which order do you think the books should be read in?

What order?

  • Written (LWW, PC, VoDT...)

    Votes: 87 46.0%

  • Chronological (MN, LWW, HHB...)

    Votes: 89 47.1%

  • Other (Please specify)

    Votes: 13 6.9%
  • Total voters
    189
I think the books should be read in this order: LWW, HahB PC, VotDT, SC, MN, LB. The Horse and his Boy can be read anywhere after LWW, but I think it should come directly after, since it tells about the time when the Pevensies were kings and queens in Narnia.. I firmly believe that MN should be read next to last. It is twice as thrilling to see Narnia created when you've already read about the Pevensie's adventure there.
 
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I read the books in order. I didn't know each one would be different; when I read the first one I assumed all of them were about Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. I think the books were great just as they are, because each book is different, and it makes it more interesting. But when I got to book # 6, I was thoroughly confused for a bit, and thinking that this book should have come first. Perhaps it should have, the beginning of Narnia and all, as an introduction. If I was to reorder them, I'd go like this:

1. The Magician and His Nephew
2. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
3. Prince Caspian
4. Voyage of the Dawn Treader
5. The Silver Chair
6. The Horse and His Boy
7. The Last Battle.
 
That's one of the reason it is good to read it in publication order. One of the other reasons being, because you don't know Aslan until LWW and if you read MN first you would know him before the Pevensies and the books don't work that way.
 
i would say that the best way to read them is in the way CS said becuase then you get to understand the full story arc and know where and how the charcters came from.
 
I don't think it really matters what order you read the books in. Each story stands on its own. I think it helps to read THAHB and TLB back-to-back if you want to learn a lot about the Calormenes and their history.
 
tirian_son_of_erlian said:
I don't think it really matters what order you read the books in. Each story stands on its own. I think it helps to read THAHB and TLB back-to-back if you want to learn a lot about the Calormenes and their history.
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that is true..but i find that reading the main story (LLW,PC,VDT,SC,LB) in order makes it easier to understand the overall effect of the books...
 
When I first read the Narnia books, I read them in Chronological order, but I think you should read it in any order you want, although if it's your first time I would recommend reading it in either Published or Chronological order (because reading the Last Battle first or anything like that doesn't seem like a good idea).

Now that I've realised I sort of don't have many memories of the books besides MN, I've started to reread them. But, I'm not really reading it in any order now. :p
 
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A teacher once said Lewis wanted it in the original published order

Warrior-Poet51088 said:
I beg to differ. After reading Magician's Nephew, reading Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe would be that much more of an "Oh! Wow! This is awesome!" experience--you'd know where everybody had come from: that the witch is Jadis, and how horrible of a person she is. It's character build-up. Have you ever read The Iliad or The Odyssey? They both have extreme amounts of character definition in them; that's why people still read them today--the characters are so well-described!
The scene with the creation of the lamp-post would not be meanignless--it would show you how young the world is; that's why Aslan explains it all to them.
I can barely stand episode 1 & 2, diehard STAR WARS fan that I be--the plot is nonexistant. But that's another can o' worms.
Now that I'm done raving, welcome to the site! :D
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A teacher once said Lewis wanted it in the original published order
 
Well, without reading 27 pages of posts in this topic, I will respond to the original question of the topic by saying that the Chronological order is the best order to read them in because it makes the most sense. By reading the Magician's Nephew first, you understand who Aslan is, who Jadis is, who the Professor is, why the wardrobe works, etc.
 
I liked starting with LWW rather than MN because I liked the Aha! moments in MN after reading LWW first
 
Which order do I think the books should be read in? No particular order, really. Just pick one up and get started! I still favor publishing order, but I think anyone can have a great Narnia experience reading any of the books.
 
I like reading in them in the order which they were written and published, because you don't know about certain things that we learn in LWW. If you read MN first you get that information first, but then you lose that element of surprise once you read MN. I also agree with reading them by picking up whichever one you want only after you read the series. It is the same with Twilight, Harry Potter, and Lemony Snicket.
 
celestialhost said:
I really can't see any sensible reason for starting with Magician's Nephew.
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I think some start with TMN because it is the prequel to LWW....but that's the order I read them in the first time I read Narnia because, well...that's the way the library had them. I say read them in whatever order you prefer and whatever makes sense to you. ;) I always read them in chronological order only because I'm used to that order, BUT, I prefer the written.
 
I must admit, I've stopped including TLB on my Narnia runs some of the time - I quite like finishing the series with The Silver Chair; that leaves some uncertainty and interest for the future with the death of Caspian X, rather than just leaving an "Oh. It's over." feeling which I find TLB can give.
 
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