I hate it when I read a book review, or someone suggests a book that looks like my flavor, but the person making the suggestion don’t bother to tell me that the damn’ thing is the what-ever-fucking-number in a series.

If it’s a series, say so.  Some series don’t require you to read them in order.  There are a lot of DiscWorld books that are just fine by themselves (Small Gods, Eric, Moving Pictures).  Others just don’t make sense out of order (Tales of the Nightside, the Harry Dresden series, the Dark Tower).

You wouldn’t hand someone your favorite parts of A Tale of Two Cities and expect them to think that was the way to read the story.  Or, if you still have the 6 little volumes of Stephen King’s Green Mile, you wouldn’t hand someone #3 and say “Here, try this.  I think you’ll like it.”

Grr.