I would suggest that one start straightaway with the suttas themselves, rather than later commentarial works. My first exposure to the Pali suttas was Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli’s The Life of the Buddha. I read this while I was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and it opened up the world of the Pali Canon for me. It is a marvelous anthology of key canonical texts. Bhikkhu Bodhi’s In the Buddha’s Words is also an anthology
