How Do You Read The Books?

[Coobreedan]

I was wondering for ages how everyone reads the books.
Personally I read them in the order they were written, like Jacques suggests.

How do you read them?

[Nightfire]

Well, when I first started, I read Redwall first, then Mossflower, then Martin the Warrior, then Mattimeo. In that order. Since then, I have read them in publication order. However, when I re-read my entire collection, like I do regularly every year, I read the chronologically.

[Gonff]

The first time I read them I read them chronologically. Since then I have been reading them in no specific order, but it's only been about a month or two since I finished reading them chronologically. Soon I plan to read them through chronologically again.

[Galedeep]

Lately I've just been picking them off my shelf at random, Haha. But when I first started reading them I read them in their publication order. I remember once I tried to read them chronologically, it got confusing.

[Log-a-Log]

I first read them in publication order, then I read them randomly, and now I'm rereading them chronologically for the first time

[Tiria Wildlough]

I read Redwall, then Mossflower, Mattimeo, and then Mariel of Redwall, I think. After that I don't remember.

[DanielofRedwall]

I read them in completed random order. The first one I read was Redwall, then the Bellmaker (I should have read Mariel of Redwall before!) then Eulalia! I can't remember the order after that.

[Lutra]

Publication order...the way they were written.  There are some that will go for chronological order, and that's fine.  I think what happens if you read in publication order though, you sort of see the morph of how Mr. Jacques wrote the stories, rather than a jarring transition if you jump from one written much earlier than the previous one.

[Gonff]

I should try reading them in publication order sometime. I just don't think I would like it as much because the first time I read them I read them in chronological order so I think it would be confusing and would seem almost like I was reading them randomly. Also I like to do things in order (I'm probably overly picky about this) so I kinda want to at least know their chronological order.

These are just reasons why I don't think I would like reading them in publication order. I know other people really like to read them this way.

[Skalrag of Marshank]

I read them in publication order, although I've read the first book about five times...

[Shellhound]

I pretty much read them randomly.  I'm planning to read through the whole series again (chronologically), ending with the Rogue Crew (which I haven't read yet).

[Dawnwing]

The first time, I read them in publication order.  That's pretty much what I do now, though I may skip ones I don't have my hands on.  Occasionally I will randomly read one book or listen to one audiobook that I feel like. 

[Folgrimeo]

I read them in a random order, by whatever books seemed most popular (or at least were recommended by whoever I was talking to on IM at the time), followed by whichever ones interested me most.

So I started out with "Redwall". I had to fight my hand really hard to not reach for "Taggerung" at first.

Well that was awesome, what's next? Looked at the redwall.tv website and was instantly won over by Martin, so I next read "Martin the Warrior" and "Mossflower". After that I went for "The Legend of Luke" because the cover was so mysterious and alluring. Then "The Bellmaker" because I heard that was swell... without anyone telling me that "Mariel of Redwall" really ought to be required reading before Bellmaker (or I ignored Mariel because I wrongly assumed a book with a female hero would be lame). After that I went for "Marlfox" because I like foxes.

It's about this time that I hear people thinking "Mattimeo" is the bee's knees, one of the best books in the series, looking back on it with reverence. Only trouble is that's the one Redwall book my local bookstore didn't have. Asked for it for my birthday because I didn't know where to look. Either my parents snagged it online or from Borders. And "Mattimeo" was awesome.

Now my local bookstore is tearfully announcing that they'll close down forever. I didn't really care that the sixth Harry Potter book had just come out, so I went back to the Redwall section. Okay, now I have to grab whichever books are left that I'm interested in. A few of them I deliberately skipped over, but I had to pick a couple. Oh yeah, there's "The Long Patrol", I mean, the Long Patrol Forums wouldn't respect me if I didn't read that. And... "Taggerung"! I had almost forgotten about it! That otter on the cover... I felt so lucky that it was still around.

It's at this point that I think I'm done with the series. There's nothing left of it that I want to read. ...but you know, I can't help but be curious. Every book has at least one entertaining thing in it, that was my motto. So I eventually went to Borders to get "The Outcast of Redwall", "Rakkety Tam", and "High Rhulain". Even though "High Rhulain" was a hardcover and thus ridiculously expensive (like $30 or something). A couple more trips I completed the collection with "Triss" (figured I'd give it a chance because of Keyla's amazing essay on it), "Loamhedge", "Pearls of Lutra", "Salamandastron", "Mariel of Redwall", and "Lord Brocktree".

Then the final four were just birthday gifts for whenever they eventually came out. "Eulalia!", "Doomwyte", "The Sable Quean", and "The Rogue Crew".

[Coobreedan]

I only have two books, the library has three, my local shop has none, but luckily most of them are on eBay.

[Captain Tammo]

I skipped around at first, but then read them in order