Reddit mentions of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Curly Haired Company: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Level 1 (Chinese Edition)

What books?
There are easy and hard books in every languages in terms of vocabulary and grammar.

The first book I read in Chinese was

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Curly-Haired-Company/dp/1941875017/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1464085663&sr=1-1&keywords=sherlock+curly

I have no idea what HSK level it is but I would guess 70-75% of the words are in the HSK 1 & 2 word lists, and the rest are in a glossary at the back (around 400 - 500 chars in total).

I definitely started with HSK word lists and these "1000 most common used char" they give you some useful words but you also pretty quickly realise what they are missing.

Obviously you want to learn question words etc which may or may not appear in those lists.

Grab the app Dechiper. All of the articles have a hsk level on them so you can gauge a rough idea of your progress. I would guess im around hsk 3 after 4-5 months of daily study. I take it "semi-seriously" (every day, but maybe just for an hour).

I'm at a really basic level as well, so IDK much about learning in the long run, but I got The Chairman's Bao as well as this: https://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Curly-Haired-Company/dp/1941875017/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1482680117&sr=8-3&keywords=Mandarin+Companion There's a few other in that series on different skill levels: I can comprehend MOST of it, and I have it on a Kindle so I can just touch any character I don't know/understand in that context. Good luck!