[Toraspanda]

Dragonsdawn, yes, that's an excellent place to start - but so is Dragonflight, one of the very best of the Pern novels.
As to the best moments, there are very many, but they seem often to be at moments of great sadness, like the funeral of Sallah Telgar in Dragonsdawn, or the almost unbearably moving departure of Robinton in All the Weyrs of Pern. I have always been inexpressibly touched by little Zair's "choosing" to accompany his human between: it was only today, when listening to the audio version, read by Anne McCaffrey herself, that I realised the drudge had been told to feed the fire-lizard from one particular bowl and no other. Of course the little creature would have given the alarm as soon as he felt Robinton die, but that doesn't make the scene any less real and moving.