So does LMB. Here’s a direct link to her own discussion of the reading order.
She says (with bolding added by me):
Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants, hands down.
My Mom was a big fan of David Baldacci, and lived just long enough to read the last book in what was at the time his latest series.
My wife loves them, but I couldnt get past the torture.
Interesting series, we enjoyed it.
I still contend that the Hornblower series is better. One thing about O’Brian when you binge re-read his series- having Jack call out Stephen to look at some scrap of sail or vice versa the Doctor pointing out some tiny dot of a rare bird gets old. And O’Brian playing Lucy and the Football with their finances got really old really fast. Still, the series is well done, .and is the second best in that genre.
I loved the series, except where Childs makes horrible errors about guns.
It was a shared universe and got way WAY too rapey later on in the series.
Excellent choice but no central character- there are three- Wizards, Nightwatch and the Witches.
Fantastic series and very re-readable.
Sadly, Noviks started to hero-worship Napoleon and make the brits the bad guys.
Dresden files- excellent choice.
The actor there is very believable as Jack.
Good but uneven.
And then of course- the very best mystery series starring the best detective team of all time- Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout.
No. Neither main character really resembled the those in the book – Aubrey too dark and bullish, Maturin too sensitive and frail, and neither possessed of the charisma of the originals. There were quite a few ahistorical changes in the plot which really put me off. Despite all this it was a good film.
Well, Death is always there, at least, since Colour of Magic, and could serve as a constant character. But seriously, I consider Discworld qualifies - it just could qualify as 3+ separate series, the ones you mention, plus Death as a probably 4th focus, Moist being a 5th. And a number of largely one-shot novel length stories (Pyramids, Moving Pictures, etc).
Like i said- an excellent choice. Just that it may not meet the OPs guidelines.
Besides the Aubrey-Maturin series, I also have great esteem for Hilary Mantel’s quartet on Thomas Cromwell, advisor to Henry VIII, and the five books Marilynne Robinson set in the very small Kansas town of Gilead between the 1860’s and 1960’s.
I don’t keep books any more unless I intend to re-read them, and the only other series on my shelves is the Ursula LeGuin Earthsea set.
Series I’ve read and like that I haven’t seen mentioned:
Kim Harrison’s Hollows series (urban fantasy that’s titled as parodies of Clint Eastwood movies)
Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series (she has written/is writing about 4 other series, all of which are entertaining)
Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock and Soulwood series, which share a universe and some characters.
Scott S. Phillips’ Pete the Drinker of Blood series, featuring a squeamish, lovelorn vampire as the hero
I’m pretty sure it’s the Travis McGee series by John D. Macdonald. Unless it’s Fletch.
That sounds interesting, I love Sharpe, Aubrey-Maturin, and the rest of the Napoleonic historical series, but I confess I stopped reading Sharpe because I was tired of the British always winning, Temeraire didn’t hold my interest when I read the first novel, but I may have to give it another chance…
It’s on my Christmas wish list this year!
You can, yes, but Shards of Honor is not the best book by a long shot, and Barrayar is one of the best. I would hate for someone to read Shards of Honor and think that is representative of the quality of the series. It’s kind of cool because it tells a different kind of love story with a different kind of couple, and it sets a lot of stuff up, so it’s worth reading IMO, but it doesn’t really reflect the sheer magnitude of awesome that is the series.
There are scenes in the Warrior’s Apprentice you can’t appreciate as much if you haven’t read Barrayar.
I actually didn’t have much use or interest in book series until the Vorkosigan Saga, because I didn’t realize the kind of rich character-building you could do with that format, and the books just get progressively and progressively better, which is the opposite of what you might expect. My favorite book in the series is Mirror Dance, which is entirely dependent on the setup of the previous books before it, #8 in the series, and one of the most beautiful redemption stories ever told.
Confession: I still haven’t finished Cryoburn or anything after it. I know what happens in Cryoburn and I cannot deal.
Since no one’s mentioned Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins novels yet, I will. Set in L.A. starting in the early 1960’s they provide a very interesting counterpoint to series with white private detective protagonists like Marlowe, Archer or Parker
For a different cultural milieu, the Albert Campion novels by Margery Allingham are similar to the Dorothy Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey books, but I found them to have a lighter touch and more fun, if that can be applied to stories of murder.
A series that is more an exploration of a time and a class, without any crime or criminal mystery elements, is the “A Dance To The Music Of Time” books by Anthony Powell.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one. 
Personally my favorite is Memory, but it’s not in anyway useful as a place to start, more of being the critical point where everything changes.
Memory is incredible.
There’s a certain point you get in the series where it’s just one masterpiece after another.
I agree. Shards of Honor is the first book Bujold wrote and she had not hit her peak yet. So it’s not a fair book to judge her overall work by. That said, you really need to read Shards of Honor before Barrayar - the story in Barrayar literally begins the day after the story in Shards of Honor ends.
As for the issues you have with Cryoburn, you can bypass that book and read Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance which was written after Cryoburn but takes place before Cryoburn. And as a bonus, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance is one of the best books in the series.
I enjoyed these, but i don’t think they are here best work. I guess they fit the “series” theme of this thread better than her other stuff (the scholomance trilogy, like the Lord of the Rings, is really one extended story over three books) but it’s SO much better than Temeraire. And her stand-alone mythological stories are awesome. It’s hard for me to think of another author who has written so well in so many different styles.
Yeah, the moral and political development of the characters, and the stress between patriotism and seeing other countries be better in various ways makes this a much more interesting series than it would otherwise have been.
Then I guess my advice would be, read in the order Bujold recommends, start with Shards of Honor, but don’t stop until you’ve read Barrayar.
You can start with Warrior’s Apprentice but there’s one scene you’ll feel way harder if you read the other two first (No! Two scenes!) Warrior’s Apprentice will start you at the beginning with the series’ protagonist at least.
I’m just pissed because I got a friend to read Shards of Honor and she didn’t like it enough to keep reading one of the best things that has ever happened in science fiction.
This.
But yes, for Memory to hit as hard as it should you have to have read the previous books, they give weight to the characters and their experiences.
I would suggest starting with The Warrior’s Apprentice, and then either go forward with The Vor Game or go back to Barrayar and Shards of Honordepending on whether you’re interested in Miles’ future or his universe’s past.
That’s what I meant by not realizing what a series can do as a medium. It’s not just about chronology.
Man, I should reread all this.
I have to admit I find it hilarious that Miles Vorkosigan, my son’s namesake, is a master at social subterfuge and manipulation, a veritable Machiavellian genius who plays people like violins, and my kid is autistic. But they both have asshole grandfathers, so hey.
I do it once per year, I’ll probably start again on March or so.