Reading along with 'A Clash of Kings' and season two of 'A Game of Thrones' will be fairly challenging, but each week I'll let you (as spoiler-free as possible) know how far ahead you will have needed to read to stay just ahead of the series.

As you might well have figured out, we’re pretty big fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones here at CliqueClack HQ. Bob has been singing the praises of George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire for some time now, but it took the series to get several of the rest of us on board.

Some of us plowed through the books as quickly as possible, while others are delaying the reading of a particular book until after its season airs. But the ones that will try to read A Clash of Kings and season two concurrently will have it pretty tough. That’s what Keith is trying to do: only watch episodes that cover chapters that he has already read. He’s asked me to help make sure he doesn’t get spoiled, and we figured we’d share the same information with you.

Compared to the first season and the book A Game of Thrones, this task will not be easy. Because the desperate stories don’t necessarily happen simultaneously, the show can show things in a completely different order than the novel. And it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone (though I’m sure purists will not appreciate this) that the show is going to begin to deviate from the books in many ways; they have to, else the show wouldn’t work in the seasons as the show is structured.

So, each week – as long as HBO sends us advance screeners – we will attempt to let you know exactly how far one would have to read to stay ahead of the series. My goal is to make these posts as spoiler free as possible, just sharing information on which chapter you’d have to read. Also, I’ll be leaning on Tower of the Hand, a great reference for fans of ASOIF and Game of Thrones –their spoiler filters are ingenious – as a touchstone for which chapter I’m referring to.

For the first episode, “The North Remembers,” one would need to have read through Chapter 24: Jon III. I have a feeling that Jon’s POV chapters will be the furthest along in each episode, at least for the first part of the season.

Photo Credit: Oliver Upton/HBO