The Essential Reading Order for The Vampire Chronicles
A lot of people have made guides and opinion pieces about which books in the series are worth reading and which can be skipped and which order to read them in. Here is mine.
Here is the real answer: The Vampire Chronicles are intended to be read in publication order. The publication order, including the witch books, is on the wiki here.
Now, if you're person who doesn't like that answer, here's a guide to reading the series in not the intended order:
You are supposed to read the first three books in publication order. If you are a person who does not like reading a book you have recently seen an adaptation of or are eager to read The Vampire Lestat, and you have recently seen the film from 1994 Interview with the Vampire, you can start with The Vampire Lestat and then go back for the first book later. Interview with the Vampire is not skippable, it might not just be the right entry point for you personally.
Once you have read the first three books, you are now going to continue in publication order, adding the book Pandora to the main TVC after Memnoch the Devil. You can skip Vittorio the Vampire if you want. You can reverse the order of Blood and Gold and Merrick if you want. I probably would, because Blood and Gold has a lot more to do with Pandora and The Vampire Armand, which you've just read, and these books truly can be switched with no impact on the series.
You have now read nine books in the series, TVC 1-8 + Pandora.
At this point you have two options: you will either go back and read the three books in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches series, then read Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle, or you will skip that step and proceed to Prince Lestat. After Prince Lestat, you have two more books in publication order before the end of the series. If you get to the end after having skipped Blackwood Farm the first time around, you can still go back and read the witch books and come back to Blackwood Farm.
Interview with the Vampire (if you initially skip it, come back after The Queen of the Damned)
The Tale of the Body Thief
Blood and Gold or Merrick
Blood and Gold or Merrick. (Decide if you want to read the Lives of the Mayfair Witches now or continue onward)
Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
The witch detour, which you can either do where it falls in the series or come back to later, is:
Outside of this reading order, if you jump around, you are skipping around reading a series that is meant to be read in a specific order when you are doing that. The order is not DIY. I do not recommend trying to read books only for specific characters or storylines, especially if you are planning that before you have read the book versions of those characters or storylines in context.
At the end of the day, you are a person with your own ability to make decisions for yourself. Everything I wrote above is 100% true, also, that's not the order I read the books in! I skipped around, I planned to not read books I later went back for, I got irritated with books and gave up on them and came back for them later, and the last book in the combined series I read was Taltos, which you'll notice doesn't make sense being last anywhere up there. I fully understand the appeal of why you might want to read in a weird order.
But for the love of God, stop trying to start reading the series with The Vampire Armand!
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