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I’ve watched all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, plus House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. I haven’t read the books. That puts me where a lot of people end up after the shows: standing in front of five very thick paperbacks, trying to work out which one comes first and whether the prequels matter.
So I’m coming at the books from the show side. Which book covers which season, where Fire & Blood and the Dunk and Egg stories fit, which box set to buy, and whether a teenager should be reading any of it. The book details come from research: the publisher’s listings, Martin’s own updates, and a stack of reading orders that disagree with each other on small things.
The main order is easy. Books 4 and 5, and the prequels, are where people get stuck.
The Short Answer
Read the five published books in the order they came out.
- A Game of Thrones (1996)
- A Clash of Kings (1998)
- A Storm of Swords (2000)
- A Feast for Crows (2005)
- A Dance with Dragons (2011)
Two more are planned, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. Neither is out, and book 6 has no release date. Save the prequels, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Fire & Blood, for after the main five. Start with A Game of Thrones even if you’ve seen the show. The books have more characters and more plot, and Martin has said they won’t end exactly the way the show did.
The cheapest way in is the mass market box set of all five, around $30. The trade paperback set costs about twice that and gets you larger paperbacks.
Where the Prequels Fit
Three companion books sit alongside the main series. None of them is required, and none of them should be your first book. When to read each one is at the end of this section.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (the Dunk and Egg stories)
Three novellas in one book: The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight. They follow Ser Duncan the Tall, a big, honest hedge knight, and his small bald squire, Egg. The scale is much smaller than the main series. One tournament, one dispute over a stream. That’s a lot of the appeal.
The HBO show’s first season ran six episodes from January 18, 2026, and adapted The Hedge Knight, the first of the three stories. Season 2 is expected in 2027 and is set to cover The Sworn Sword. Gary Gianni illustrated this edition.
Fire & Blood
The history of House Targaryen, told by a maester, from Aegon’s Conquest up through the civil war called the Dance of the Dragons. It’s 736 pages in hardcover with illustrations by Doug Wheatley. House of the Dragon adapts the Dance of the Dragons part. Season 3 started on June 21, 2026, and HBO has renewed the show for a fourth season.
One thing to know before buying: this is the first of two planned volumes, and the second one isn’t out.
The World of Ice & Fire
A big illustrated history of Westeros and the lands beyond it, written with Elio M. Garcia Jr. and Linda Antonsson, who run the Westeros.org fan site. It has more than 170 pieces of art and maps and family trees for the Starks, Lannisters and Targaryens. It’s the one to give a show fan who wants the history but isn’t sure about more than 4,000 pages of novels.
| Book | Published | Set | When to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms | 2015 (stories from 1998 to 2010) | About 90 years before A Game of Thrones | After the main five, or any time after book 3 |
| Fire & Blood | 2018 | Starts about 300 years before | After the main five, or alongside House of the Dragon |
| The World of Ice & Fire | 2014 | The whole history of Westeros | Whenever you want the background |
In timeline order it goes Fire & Blood, then A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, then the main five. Starting at the beginning of the timeline is a hard way in, though. Fire & Blood reads like a history book, with long stretches of kings, marriages and dates, and it works best once you already care about the Targaryens.
The Song of Ice and Fire Books in Order
The series is called A Song of Ice and Fire. Game of Thrones is the title of the first book and of the HBO show, which is why most people use it for the whole thing.
1. A Game of Thrones (1996)
King Robert Baratheon rides north to Winterfell to ask his old friend Ned Stark to be his Hand, and the Starks get pulled south into the politics of King’s Landing. Across the sea, Daenerys Targaryen is married off to a Dothraki warlord. At the Wall, Jon Snow joins the Night’s Watch.
Season 1 follows it closely. The big difference is that every chapter is told from inside one character’s head.
2. A Clash of Kings (1998)
Five men claim the crown at once, and the war spreads across the whole map in what became season 2. It came out in the UK in late 1998 and in the US in early 1999, so you’ll see both years on reading lists.
3. A Storm of Swords (2000)
The longest of the five. It’s long enough that the UK paperback comes in two parts, Steel and Snow and Blood and Gold. The show needed two seasons for it, season 3 and most of season 4. If you remember those two seasons, you already know the biggest moments come from this book.
4. A Feast for Crows (2005)
Martin’s draft grew so long that he split it in two by place. A Feast for Crows follows the characters in King’s Landing, the Riverlands, the Iron Islands and Dorne.
Jon, Tyrion and Daenerys get no chapters at all.
5. A Dance with Dragons (2011)
The missing characters come back, and the first half of this book runs at the same time as A Feast for Crows, up north and across the sea. The second half moves past it and starts pulling the two storylines together.
Should You Read Books 4 and 5 Together?
Some fans do. They alternate chapters from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons so the timeline runs in one line. The best-known version of that list is the “Boiled Leather” order, and you can find it online.
It’s a reread trick. On a first read, go Feast, then Dance. You’ll spend a whole book without some favorite characters, and then you get them back. Martin explains the split himself in a short note at the end of A Feast for Crows, which is worth reading before you move on.
Which Book Each HBO Season Covers
| Show and season | Book |
|---|---|
| Game of Thrones, season 1 (2011) | A Game of Thrones |
| Season 2 (2012) | A Clash of Kings |
| Season 3 (2013) | First half of A Storm of Swords |
| Season 4 (2014) | Rest of A Storm of Swords, plus pieces of books 4 and 5 |
| Season 5 (2015) | A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, heavily changed |
| Seasons 6 to 8 (2016 to 2019) | Mostly past the books |
| House of the Dragon (2022 onward) | Fire & Blood |
| A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, season 1 (2026) | The Hedge Knight |
Having watched all eight seasons, the useful thing to know is where the show and the books split. Through season 4 they mostly line up, with characters cut and storylines squeezed together. Season 5 is where they start to come apart. From season 6 on, the show is telling its own version of an ending the books haven’t reached yet. So books 1 to 3 give you the story you watched, with more of it. Books 4 and 5 are where you meet characters and whole storylines the show dropped.
We go through more shows like this in our guide to sci-fi and fantasy books that became TV series.
What Age Are the Game of Thrones Books For?
These are adult books. Common Sense Media rates the series 17+, and HBO rates both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon TV-MA.
What’s in them: graphic battle violence and executions, torture, violence against children, a lot of sex, sexual assault, and incest that sits in the middle of the main plot. Several characters are also much younger in the books than on screen. Daenerys is 13 when she’s married off in book 1.
My call is 18 and up, a year higher than Common Sense Media’s.
For a younger teen who wants a big fantasy series, our fantasy series list has better places to start.
Will There Be a 6th Game of Thrones Book?
Yes, eventually. Book 6 is The Winds of Winter, and Martin is still writing it. As of November 2026 there’s no release date. In early 2026 he said again that finishing it is his priority, and he’s been open that it’s taking far longer than he hoped.
After that comes A Dream of Spring, planned as the last book. A Dance with Dragons came out in 2011. Go in knowing the story stops partway, for now.
Last checked: November 1, 2026.
Which Game of Thrones Box Set to Buy
For a first read, the mass market box set. It’s about $30 for all five books, and the paperbacks are small enough to carry around. The trade paperback set is about $59 for larger paperbacks and a box that looks better on a shelf. Both are in The Short Answer above.
Collectors have more options. The first three books have illustrated hardcover editions, starting with A Game of Thrones: The Illustrated Edition at around $26. There’s also a graphic novel version of A Game of Thrones, split into volumes, with volume one around $14. It’s drawn, but it’s still the same adult story.
Audiobooks are how I get through long drives, and these are long. The longest of the five runs well past 40 hours on Audible. Roy Dotrice narrates the main series.
What’s Next
If you want more fantasy after Westeros, start with our best fantasy series list. For other shows based on books, there’s the book-to-TV adaptations guide and this year’s 2026 book-to-screen list. Not sure whether you want adventure or fantasy next? This guide sorts that out. If Middle-earth is next on the list, our Lord of the Rings merch guide covers the gifts. Everything else lives in Best Books.
Get the mass market box set and read A Game of Thrones. If you finish it and want more, the other four are already on the shelf.
About These Recommendations
I’m George, a dad of two. My wife did most of the reading to our kids when they were little, and I did my share. She’s a therapist, and she helps pick the books that actually matter for their development. Some of what’s on this site we’ve read, watched or played as a family. Some I tried on my own first. The rest comes from research: reviews, episode guides, other parents online, and whatever the kids bring home from school.
FAQ
Five published novels in A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Two more are planned, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. There are also three companion books: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Fire & Blood and The World of Ice & Fire.
Yes. Book 6 is The Winds of Winter. George R. R. Martin is still writing it, and as of November 2026 it has no release date. A seventh book, A Dream of Spring, is planned to end the series.
A Game of Thrones. Fire & Blood is set about 300 years earlier, but it’s written as a history of the Targaryen kings and works best once you know the world. Read it after the main five books, or alongside House of the Dragon.
Publication order: A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1998), A Storm of Swords (2000), A Feast for Crows (2005) and A Dance with Dragons (2011). Read the prequels A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and Fire & Blood after those.
Adults. We rate the series 18+, and Common Sense Media rates it 17+. The books include graphic violence, torture, sexual content including sexual assault, and incest that is part of the main plot.
The books aren’t finished yet, so nobody knows. George R. R. Martin has said they won’t end exactly the way the HBO show did. The show ran past the books from season 6 on.