The Patternist Series by Octavia Butler has significant differences in the release / internal chronologies - the release order is Patternmaster, Mind of my Mind, Survivor, Wild Seed, Clay's Ark, but the in-universe chronology goes Wild Seed, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Survivor, Patternmaster.
I usually tend to read things in publication order, because I trust that there are no references I'll miss if I do it that way, since the original readers couldn't very well have expected to read them out of order, but in this case the omnibus edition orders them chronologically (and also skips Survivor, which Butler has disowned). The only reason I would want to read them in in-universe chronological order is if there are significant spoilers inherent in the nature of the books: e.g. if some character is put in mortal danger in Clay's Ark, but they are a main character in Patternmaster then I'd know that any danger to that character is not "real".
So given these concerns, can someone who has read these books suggest an order? I've already read Wild Seed (picked it up years ago at a used book store and didn't know it was part of a series), so in a sense I already have a feel for the universe.
Edit: I've now read all these books, and I'll say that I agree with the accepted answer pretty strongly. There definitely are spoilers if you read it in publication, rather than chronological order. That said, most of the books are largely independent, and I ended up going Wild Seed, Patternmaster, Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Survivor and I didn't feel like it really damaged my enjoyment of the books. I'd still recommend the chronological order.