Haha, believe me there are better people on this sub who could answer, I've only been reading consistently since the NEW52 started, before that I would grab a trade every couple of months and was out of the loop for the most part, I kept up by reading wiki pages though (www.dc.wikia.com is a great resource)



In terms of crossovers, there isn't much that's missed outside of the main Batman run (Snyder's run) as it's pretty self contained, the tie in issues were just little bits of extra that you could read to see what was happening in other books at the time, they're nice to read, but not necessary, there were 2 hardcovers that contained the tie ins for Court of Owls and Death of the Family


Batman: Night of the Owls has all the tie ins, but not the main story




Joker: Death of the Family has all the tie ins but again, none of the main story



The first few issues of Nightwing, I believe 1 to 8, could be considered part of the Court of Owls event, but again, it isn't necessary



The only thing you need to read for Snyder's Batman events are just the main Batman run, everything else is "supplementary" as they add on, rather than provide important details to the story



Endgame is happening now as you know, and the tie ins are just events happening on the side while Endgame goes on, but the tie ins are coming out this month (March), there are 4 titles that tie in (Arkham Manor, Batgirl, Detective Comics and Gotham Academy)


Again to re-iterate, if you've been reading Snyder's run completely, then you haven't lost anything, everything else just adds on



Hopefully this helps!

It appears they are doing that with New 52. The first runs have been collected via Batman Vol. 1: Court of Owls (Batman #1-7), Batman: Night of Owls, (Batman #8-9 + assorted Bat family titles) and Batman Vol. 2: City of Owls (Batman #8-12 + Annual #1).

Batman #13-17 will be collected in Batman Vol 3: Death of the Family and its accompanying stories in Joker: Death of the Family.

http://www.amazon.com/Batman-Night-Owls-The-New/dp/1401237738/ref=pd_sim_b_3

You should definitely read Year One. Not only is it a great read, it's pretty much considered the number one go-to for Batman origin. Everything on the side panel to the right is great for reading, but the great thing about New 52 is you don't really need to know a lot about Batman to be able to really delve into it and enjoy the story. I know several people who are just starting with New 52 and running with it. In that case, I would start with Batman Vol. 1 The Court of Owls and Vol. 2 The City of Owls. If you like that and you're into the darker side of Batman, I'd go with Vol. 1 of Detective comics next. There's a lot of parallels in Detective Comics with the issues of Batman that haven't yet made it to trade paperback. Batman & Robin builds on the relationship between Bruce and his son Damian, the current(ish) Robin, which is further enhanced by reading Batman Inc.

New 52 has its pros and cons. They're awesome, and it's amazing how intertwined the stories can be, especially within the Bat Family (all running bat-family comics centered around The Court of Owls for at least a few issues), but at the same time, it means you have a lot more reading and collecting to do to get the full story.

Also, if you want to get a feel for the whole bat-family in one run, there's always Night of the Owls which collects at least one issue of every bat-family comic with the exception of Batman Inc. and Batwoman.

Truthfully, reading comics and trade paperbacks is a very tedious and very expensive task if you're new to comics. To get "up to speed" on Batman in order to fully comprehend every little detail of New 52, you'd have to buy a shitload of comics. Therefore, I say run with New 52 for now, and if you like it, go back and collect the stuff on the sidebar. In the meantime, if you run into something you're not familiar with, wikipedia is one hell of a resource. I know more about comics from reading wikipedia than I do from reading comics. Say you're reading the New 52 and you have no idea who Tim Drake is; not an uncommon thing, since a lot of people who don't read comics are unfamiliar with the fact that there have been multiple Robins in the Batman universe. Wikipedia can quickly, easily, and (most importantly) cheaply fill any voids of knowledge you might have on it.

Sorry, this is long winded, but I wanted to try to give you as much info as possible.

All the court of owl tie ins are collected in Night of the Owls, if that helps.

Yep, Absolute contains the whole story-line. (but there is book called Night of the Owls that tells stories from other characters' perspective regarding the whole Owl theme)

It really isn't necessary to read all the periphery books from the Batman family of titles. They serve to broaden the scope of Night of the Owls. However, the only issues that really "need" to be read are Batman, Nightwing and Detective Comics - and 'tec isn't even that necessary.


As it is, the whole Night of the Owls story is going to be collected in a trade, along with Volume 1 and Volume 2 of Batman.

21 I believe is the start of the run titled Zero Year, so they are the same thing. I'd start with 1 so you're not jumping into it in the middle. Here are some links for you.

1-6

7-12

supplemental material for the above

13-17

supplemental material for 13-17

The supplemental material isn't required to get what's going on (I'm not really worrying about it, I've only read 1-12 to this point and am waiting for 13-17 to come out in one volume), but it does help give you a greater understanding of the full story, from what I've heard.

edit: not sure why ppl are downvoting? If there's any inaccuracy in this please comment by all means.