The Xanth Trilogy (he's working on #38 now... some trilogy) can be read stand-alone successfully, but reading them in order does give you background into the land and recurring characters. I think Piers Anthony (the author) does a decent enough job of giving background on the recurring so that you don't get lost, though.
The funnest thing with Xanth (for me) is that once you get past the first few books, the puns really start rolling in. Piers started developing a database of reader-submitted puns, and strove to use as many of them as he could in any given book. He always lists them in the Author's Notes at the back.
Piers has a mind even dirtier than mine (which is saying something), and a bit of that peeks
through... but not in an overbearing way.
I've read most of the Xanth series... I turn to that when I want something I can laugh at but still be engaged in the characters. I've also read his Pornucopia series and his Mode series.
I've also read the 1st book in the Geoddessey series (The Isle of Woman) which I thought as a very interesting take on human/societal evolution.
hmmm... I've always proclaimed Robert Heinlein as my favorite author. I may need to reexamine that position...
).
