Starting on Immanuel Kant...

[mal4mac]

I'd recommend starting with Confessions of a Philosopher by Bryan Magee. This is a gentle introduction to philosophy by someone who is very pro-Kant. Then move on to Roger Scruton's short book Kant: A Very Short Introduction. Avoid Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" as he didn't dig Kant.

I've read the Critique of Pure Reason (Pluhar's translation), the invaluable aid that got me through was Caygill's A Kant Dictionary... It took months... a very hard slog... not sure it was worth it... (although getting a basic understanding of his ideas from Magee and Scruton was certainly worth it.)

I also rather liked Peter Singer's book on Hegel in that Very Short Introduction series; to explain Hegel he had to explain a lot of Kant...

[Vota]

I read about 50 pages of Kant and had to hold down the bile that was building up. Mostly due to his having one of the worst, overly jargon heavy writing styles I have ever come across.