I adore the second and third books. Yes, they're different, but different in a very good way -- and I'm like genarti, I was a little lukewarm on the first book and didn't really kick into high gear until the second. The second book is an h/c extravaganza. At the very least do yourself a favor and read that one.

I mainlined the series (as it then existed) right after the release of book 4, and then there was a very long wait between books 4 and 5, to the point where no one was really sure if we ever WOULD get a book 5; that was when he had his near-fatal car accident, and I think the direction of the series changed a lot at that point -- there's something semi-autobiographical about the whole thing, but that's when it becomes obviously part biography, part catalogue of his fictional influences. Having had that long gap, though, for canon to settle in my head, I still kinda think of the series as having ended with book 4. I definitely didn't hate the ending like a lot of people did; I agree 100% with genarti's assessment, that it feels right -- I think it's actually a better ending than a lot of King books have, since he has a tendency to go off the rails pretty badly in the last quarter of his books -- but it's also a lot of ouch. However, I think you can pretty easily stop with the 4th book. My favorite part of the series ends with the first few chapters of book 4 and the characters getting out of the mess they're in at the end of book 3; then most of book 4 is a book-within-a-book with a whole different set of characters, who you may like, but for me it was a digression and led into the entire rest of the series feeling like a digression from what I actually wanted it to be, if that makes any sense. So book 4 is a good place to stop, and there is also a built-in stopping place in book 7 -- there's a point where the narrative voice actually points out that if you want a happy ending, you should stop reading now, and HE'S NOT JOKING. That's also an option. The ending didn't taint the series for me, but I've also never accomplished a reread that went beyond the first few chapters of book 4.