They don’t have all the books??! How rude. You might be able to find the others online for free very cheaply, or at second-hand stores like the Salvation Army.

There ARE different main characters in some of the books, and in some, Lestat is almost entirely left out. He is mentioned only once just to point out that he WILL be completely left out in Vittorio, but that book was not really intended as a Vampire Chronicle. 

But the order of the VC still tracks along Lestat’s journey, even if it veers off for a book or two (as with the Vampire Armand or Blood and Gold) and then picks back up with him. 

When I was asked “Which books do you personally and/or (if you might feel differently) the majority of the fandom regard as canon?” I answered that I had read them in chronological order as they came out, and it makes sense to do it that way since that’s the order in which Anne Rice pursued her interest in developing different characters/storylines/worldbuilding/etc. and establishing her own rules re: vampire origins, powers, and limitations.

Short answer is: without access to the full canon, you can’t just breeze through it like I did, and I don’t know which ones you are missing, but…. I recommend you read them in order as best you can. In later canon, other characters will refer to scenes already played out in earlier canon, contributing their own perspective, which may be confusing and will spoil those scenes for you. It will be up to you to decide which character’s account of things to believe. They’re all wildly unreliable narrators with their own selfish reasons for explaining things the way they do ;D

^Regardless of the “truth,” do I grin like I’m seeing old friends every time I see a lineup of VC on a bookshelf, no matter what their condition? You bet your a$$ I do.

Hit the jump for moar on this.

Some ppl who HAVE access refuse to read Prince Lestat, or a bunch of the other books, and won’t even give them a chance, so your lack of access might also reflect the fact that the books are not all equally popular. Your library might have purposely not included what it considers the less-popular installments.

Most of the fandom, in my experience, have had different gateway drugs to the series. I love collecting stories of how people first got into it (#I love these kind of stories tag). They first saw movie!IWTV or movie!QOTD and then read the corresponding book, or a friend gave them a random one from the series, or someone donated the whole series to them, etc. From there, some people read in order, some people skipped around. 

THAT SAID, if you want to make VC fanworks (including fic, meta discussion, fanart, etc.) or do VC RP, it seems to help if you’ve read at least IWTV, TVL, and TVA (TVA might spoil previous events in canon but it’s really THE authority on Armand)(and read some fanfic!).

I think those VC contain the crux of the fan fave characters (Lestat, Louis, ((Nicki)), Gabrielle, Armand, Daniel, Marius) and scenes that have had alot of impact in developing the main characters. Your fanworks/RP will be richer if you know the background of the characters, because you’ll be able to refer to the events, or quotes, or take them as a jumping-off point in your work.

However, in the later books, you get new info, new characters, and new perspectives on previous events (example: Claudia’s diary entry in QOTD is heartwrenching).

@annabellioncourt​ had added this good commentary on that post and I agree with her 110% (except that I don’t love Vittorio but still): 

I personally recommend that people read the first three books (IWTV, TVL, QOTD) and if they really enjoy it to try reading the rest of them.

But my caveat for that is that if they don’t care for Body Thief or Memnoch then still give Pandora and Vittorio a chance, then Armand, and if they enjoyed Armand and Pandora, to try Blood and Gold.

Its complicated, but so is the series, for such a seemingly straightforward concept of “vampires decide to write tell-all memoirs of their behind the scenes lives.”