Could anyone give me some suggestions about what Chinese books are suitable for me? My Chinese is about at Shida level 6. I know at least 2,000 characters. So far, all I’ve read are textbooks. I think I’m ready to try a real book. I think collections of essays or short stories, or novels that aren’t too long, would be the best. Any ideas?
I did this when I was learning Russian/French
- Kids books. The language is simple. (more simple)
- Stories that you know well in English. It will help you get past parts you can’t understand. Ex. The three little pigs. You’ll be able to make resonable guesses about the characters you don’t know.
- Comic books. A picture is worth a thousand words.
- News papers. You know what they are talking about already so it’s easier to understand.
Good luck
Ski
Here are recommendations from several Taiwanese friends. I’ve bought them but haven’t read most of them yet.
稻草人手記 - by 三毛 (her pen name) Essays in Chinese only, vertically; comes highly, highly recommended from several Taiwanese friends.
老人與海 Hemingway, bilingual vsn, horizontal, double spaced with room for notes.
親愛的老婆 and 離島醫生 by 侯文詠, superb light humorous anecdotal writing; also 白色巨塔 which is longer and harder, but recommended. All Chinese only, vertically.
鐘樓怪人 (Hunchback of ND) Hugo, bilingual, simplified English vsn. Chinese is horizontal, lots of space for notes.
流浪者之歌 (Siddhartha) Herman Hesse. Bilingual, but not facing pages; English is 1st half of book. Chinese in 2nd half is cramped.
You can also ask in any bookstore for the 中英對照 books, as they are often kept together, and then pick ones you like. I have one called Selected World Famous Sayings. You can also look for any book translated from English, and then order the original online if you can’t find it in Taiwan.
加油 !
Ski’s first three suggestions are really good; I had great success with these. There are sets of inexpensive hardcover kids’ books that cover a variety of topics that will build your vocab, translated from Japanese and have cartoons and bopomofo added, but the content is actually very educational. It is the 自然小百科 series 
by 泉源出版社 (e.g., ISBN 957-573-104-2), on plants, fish, the universe, animals, the earth, dinos, the human body, science, insects and computers.
Another is the 青少年叢書 series at the 故宮 gift shops, e.g., 泥土的光輝, on all the different kinds of arts in the NPM such as ceramics, bronzes, calligraphy, painting, etc.
There are similar hardcover books covering a variety of Chinese folktales, famous western stories like Robin Hood, etc., that you can try, and if you read bopomofo, having that next to the characters can help take the drudgery out of lookups.
Another good kind is the bilingual editions with Chinese on one page and English facing. You can read the Chinese first, then check your comprehension with the English. Or get very small books like Animal Farm and The Little Prince, buying one copy in each language, and read similarly.
Finally, if you feel comfortable moving to books without pinyin or bopomofo crutches, ask locals what their favorite easy to read, relatively short books are, and ask them to be sure they are very bai2hua4. If they’re translations like Harry Potter, it’ll be even easier assuming you know the story. There’s one collection of amusing anecdotes by a doctor stationed on a small island with the military, 離島醫生 .
As for newspapers, I found them a bit tough when I was at that transitional level, and ended up postponing them for a couple years. Now the current election fiasco has sparked my interest, and I’ve resumed reading them, and since it’s not as painfully slow as before, I enjoy it more.
Good luck!
I may suggest you have a Engliish Chinese dictionary installed in your computer then go to the hottest Chinese website to read the articles that you are most interested in.