After the recent episode, many are asking for recommendations on how to approach Dostoevsky. Rather than answering all the emails, I’ll do it here. 1/5
Start w/Notes From the Underground. This is the first book where D finally unlocked the secrets of underground psychology: how pride, vindictiveness, spite, ad masochism disguise themselves as virtue. It’s a book of astonishing honesty. Everything follows from here. 
Next do Crime & Punishment. If two is enough for you, make them Notes and C&P. I like to describe this book as the story of the protagonist from Notes From the Underground if he had read Nietzsche as a young man. Real-life examples like Leopold & Loeb make it visceral.
If you’re really into it at this point, read Demons (aka Devils, aka The Possessed) next. Some D fans like this book best of all. Characters like Stavrogin & Kirilov are among his greatest creations. If 3 is enough for you, skip to the next one.
Of course finally, The Brothers Karamazov. It really is a culmination, finished in his last year of life. I recommend not reading it first, even if you think you’ll only read one. It’s just better when it’s the 3rd or 4th or later book of his you’ve read.
The Idiot is great, too, of course. It steps a bit outside the line of development seen in the above-listed works, but only a bit, and is certainly great in its own right.
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