I begin to read books. Your advice: read the book adapted (choose your level) or conventional books but bilingual?
I think the main point is that you are able to enjoy the book. So it should be a) of interest b) not to difficult.
In fact, one year ago I went to a book shop with some English books, and started to read the first page. Then I decided to buy one of the books and it was perfect. It was not a graded reader, and it was not bilingual. Both can help, but you should consider to buy a regular book as well.
Good luck with your studies!
I agree with Vera, enjoyment is the key. If the book is really interesting you won’t mind that it is difficult. If it is easy and of no interest that won’t do much either. I do not like bilingual books but others do. So it is up to you.
One year ago I picked up a Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen and although I could understand some words and make out what some of the sentences mean, I really didn’t enjoy it because I didn’t understand enough, I started again when I first found lingQ which was around 6 months ago and I still couldn’t understand very much, I got a little bit more than the first try, but not very much. Upon seeing this thread I picked the book up, I read the first two pages and understood around 80 - 90%. I am now going to read the book through because I am able to enjoy it, I believe this story not only shows you how effective LingQ is, but also adds to the discussion.
I believe the first books must be short stories. It’s too difficult to have so much patience to read a long novel in a foreign language if you are not an advanced student because you will have too many new words to understand the contents.
But in any case the book must be interesting for you.
I used to read some books in Russian and German or Russian and English at the same time.It can be useful,but not in the low level. However, you needn’t to check every line in these books otherwise the impression would be spoiled.
So my recomendations: adabted abriged books - only for elementary and low intermediate level, then - genuine original books, but srarting with short stories.
My french level is still very low, but with lingq, i can read books that are relatively advanced, and still find them intriguing… Right now i am reading “Vingt mille lieues sous les meres” by Jules Verne, and while listening to the audio i constantly “hover” over unknown words, quickly lingq’ing them and then i resume following the text… I do need to pause once in a while, to catch up with the text, and surely, plenty of words escape my attention, but i have found that with this method, i still understand the gist of the texts - and that just makes me want to read even more 
My French level is low, but besides the lessons from the LingQ library I like to import articles from LE FIGARO that I find both interesting and challenging.
Examples:
“Il se déguise en vieillard pour monter dans l’avion” - http://bit.ly/bJhsHK
“Le naufrage du Titanic serait dû à une erreur de navigation” - http://bit.ly/deCNyr
“Les TGV allemands prennent le tunnel sous la Manche” - http://bit.ly/bhpdcs
I would like to read one of the “Maigret” detective novels, but I think the text is only available as a book, so it may be tedious to read it without the help of LingQ…
As for me I don’t like bilingual books. There is some reasons. I consider when you read English books you need to think in English. It’s difficult for our brain use two languages at the same time. Do this activity: star to count in foreign language up to ten and see how many seconds it take. Then do the same in . native language and check the time. Then count to ten one number in foreign language and next number in native language an check the time. When you compare three these tree times you will see that third activity take more time then previous even if you train yourself to count faster . So the consequence is that for human brain is easier to work in one language at the same time.
I I’m wrong please correct me
When you read a bilingual book, you do not read two languages at once, do you? I have no problem switching between reading in different languages. But if you don’t like bilingual books, that’s fine. It is your choice. On the other hand, counting is not like reading, so your reasoning seems flawed to me.