Reading order debate: chronological vs publication, my club split in half over it

Our book club in Austin got into a huge fight last month about whether to read the Thursday Murder Club series in order or just jump in with the newest one. I picked chronological because I'm a stickler for spoilers, but four members wanted to skip straight to the latest book so we could discuss something fresh. So we made a deal: I read the first two, they read the newest, then we met and compared notes. Honestly, it was a mess. The skip-ahead folks kept referencing characters I didn't know, and I was explaining plot threads they'd missed from earlier books. We spent half the meeting just trying to align our timelines. Has anyone else ever run a split reading plan like that, or do you always enforce a strict order? I'm wondering if we should just do two separate meetings next time so nobody feels left out.

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michaelchen6d ago

Thought I was dead set on strict order until I tried a split read with my group once, and honestly it opened my eyes. We did the same thing with a trilogy, half read book one, half read book three, and the meeting was chaos but in a good way. I realized the folks who skipped ahead brought this fresh energy that made me question stuff I'd just accepted from the earlier books. Meanwhile, they got curious about the backstory and actually went back to read what they missed after we argued it out. Now I'm way more chill about mixing it up, sometimes we even do a full series for some members and a standalone for the rest, then swap notes. Your club splitting into two meetings sounds smart, but don't sell the split read short, it can turn a boring catch-up session into a real debate.