The Wheel of Time series shouldn't be read as stand-alone novels but it could be done. The actual amount of time over the (seven I think?) whole series so far is about a year so that gives you an idea of how Robert Jordan writes. There are at least ten major characters and in the later books, how they act and react are directly related to what happens in the first and subsequent books. Also, each book just starts and ends - there aren't any big beginnings or complete endings (not yet anyway), so they would sort of leave you hanging.
Each one, however, does sort of give a snapshot of what has happened before. Unfortunately, this is just a snapshot and when you have so many major characters, with their own stories and events, it would be difficult to recreate their stories sufficiently to give the reader a 'legs up' on who and what the characters are.
An example, one of the characters, Matt Cauthon (I think I have that right, I haven't read them in forever) goes through a huge traumatic change from being in the right place at the wrong time and he is completely outlook on life is completely different. Much like how in the "Lord of the Isles" books (David Drake), the main character, Garric, has somehow had the soul (if you will) of one of his ancestors implanted in his brain. If you didn't read the first book, you'd get the idea in the sequels (as he talks to himself often and his ancestor talks back) but you weren't there to witness how it occurred. With Matt, you sort of get hints at what has happened to him but you don't really know like you do with Garric.
So now that I've blathered on about nothing really, I'll restate what I said; you could read them by themselves but you probably wouldn't really enjoy them. It would be like watching one episode of a soap opera - you'd really end up lost.
