I would suggest reading in the wiki what you need to know about KOTOR 1 to play KOTOR 2. If you have played Dragon Age Origins and liked it, I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend KOTOR 2 on PC alongside some patches that add content and make it better over-all [like custom lightsabers]. The good thing is that the references from KOTOR 1 on 2 aren't many, besides a few characters leaving recorded messages or the droid being the same as the first game.
KOTOR 1 is great, but KOTOR 2 is fantastic and like Ethan said you'd be doing yourself a disservice
If you really don't want to from what I hear there are books dealing with Revan and the Jedi Outcast, but I think those take place pre-KOTOR 1 and post-KOTOR 2. Then there's a non-canon game called The Old Republic that fucks up Revan.
I understand your feelings though. Before I played Witcher 2 I saw a let's play of the entire Witcher 1 game, but not before I read the novels and short stories dealing with Geralt of Rivia. Once I started the games it was so much more satisfying to know characters and get references.