I laud you for your individual approach, but it's also nice to have a framework of basically accepted facts to hang the subsequent work on. Mallory, Trophy, and Poyer were "conventional" authors. Joe Farmer is of a different generation, and so TOTALLY different - and, while I do not "like" his writing STYLE, his work is absolutely first rate, plus, and his book is a MUST read, as it corrects some previously published misinterpretations.