Two things I've learned about educational books:
- You should always read the preface
Authors always indicate their impetus for writing the book in the preface, whether directly or subtextually. If an author has a solid idea and a clear path of instruction, they'll demonstrate it here. Ditto if they're only writing for the sheer perceived prestige of authoring a book, which is annoyingly common.
The preface is also where the important bit of the table of contents actually resides: a brief description of the chapter and an indication why it's pertinent. I don't get why we've settled on the dumb practice of having this information but not on the actual list to its page number, but whatever.
Importantly, here is written explicitly whether this is even the right book for you and what prerequisites the text has, which is essential. One can forgive publishers for their bad tables of contents because of this great emergent feature. - You should always skip the first chapter
If the preface motivated you to read, the first chapter exists to discourage you with uselessness. If you read the “who this book is for” and “what you should already know” bits in the preface, this is where the author attempts to revise and contradict those statements by summarizing the entire cosmology in a mere chapter. They always fail; your time is always wasted.
Just start from chapter two.