It is not possible to read every book that others or one’s own intellect may suggest, however holy or important they are. At the same time, it is a good idea to always keep a book going. While some prescribe reading the lives of the saints, and others the desert fathers (always with the blessing and conversation of one’s Father Confessor), and still others history, the fathers, or the work of the latest scholar or thinker (which are sometimes erroneously called theologians), it is good to consult one’s Father Confessor on such things, and to find one’s own way. Advice can be helpful; just as one would ask instructions for reaching Rome. Others have been on the path, even if all roads eventually lead there.
In university, my Professor advised me to read what interests me, and the moment it doesn’t interest me to put it down. Subject, of course, to one’s catechetical instructor, and one’s Father Confessor, I would suggest in your case, reading the Fathers – not the Desert Fathers, for now, but that these be read with help from those who know the difference between a Father, an early Christian writer, and a heretic, which often appear in the same volumes, collection, and editions.
You definitely want the Apostolic Fathers, with the aforementioned provisos. The SVS Press editions of later Fathers are compact (notably, the works of St. John of Damascus and St. Theodore the Studite, on the Holy icons, and St. Athanasius “On the Incarnation”). Bettenson’s twin Volumes, “The Early Christian Fathers” and “The Later Christian Fathers”, with the same provisos, are excellent topical arrangements of texts. I would also recommend some appropriate history, such as certain works by Fr. Meyendorff (“Christ in Eastern Christian Thought”), Fr. Schmemman (“The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy”), some works on iconography, such as those of Kalokyris and Fr. Ouspensky, and some works that it may be safely said belong in any Orthodox library, such as Vladimir Lossky’s “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” and works by Fr. Florovsky (not Florensky). I would also recommend the works of Joseph Farrell, such as “Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor”, “The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit”. The work by his academic mentor Bishop Kallistos Ware (as Fr. Timothy Ware) – “The Orthodox Church” is a handy introduction, though problematic in some areas.
In short, be reading something, and read as gradually or voraciously as you feel is right, consulting your catechetical instructor and later Father Confessor, and read always with prayer, realizing that reading is a form of prayer, but do not drown in books at the expense of the rest of your Faith.
— Catechetical Letter 4/16/05