Pale Fire is an amazing book. Nabakov's writing is so good that you have to stop again and again just to enjoy it.

You might as well read Lolita first. There are shorter and less complicated books and stories by Nabokov, but Lolita is a kind of acid test -- you'll love it or hate it, and if you love it the sheer story will carry you through the inimitably weird language.

I have been warned NOT to start with Lolita, the icky sexual politics of which (so said my cautioner) might turn me off to what a fabulous writer he is. I do find him an incredible writer (Pale Fire particularly) and am actually saving Lolita for last.

That's interesting, because I've actually heard the opposite - that it's his unbelieveable use of language that gets many people through what would otherwise be an intolerablely disturbing story.

I asked my dad, who has read everything by and about Nabokov. He suggests starting with PNIN, because "it's short and bittersweet," followed by LOLITA.

I started with Pale Fire because somewhere I saw this quote from it:

I am the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure of the window pane.

I thought "Pale Fire" was going to explode in my hands. It's an amazing, fascinating, erudite, moving and formally astonishing book. Why not start there?

I would say Lolita. I adore Pale Fire, but it was hard for me to start and it's very weird, with a format unlike anything else I'm aware of in literature, so it's an ambitious place to start. Lolita is more accessible, in my opinion. Ada is fabulous as well; very absorbing. I have to say, none of the others stand out that strongly in my memory. I would not recommend starting with the short stories; they're kind of boring.