To be fair, Paradise Lost isn't a book; it's an epic poem with over a thousand lines.
I have an English Lit degree and I studied Paradise Lost for my 400-level Capstone Thesis and I got to see
the great Stanley Fish lecture at a Milton symposium the University of Illinois at Chicago , and I gotta say i *love* Paradise Lost but it does require some guidance and some additional material (my thesis focused on Eve from the feminist perspective yeah yeah I know, but there is a SHITLOAD of research from that perspective, I could barely narrow down my research!). I've re-read it at least 3 times and my shelves are loaded with additional research and I highly recommend:
*
this
*
this
* And if there is any way you can get ahold of C.S. Lewis' "A Preface to Paradise Lost," GET IT because it, in itself, IS FUCKING AWESOME.