At the risk of being unresponsive: don't try to read a book as your starting point. Go find a monastery, spend a day, talk to a monk, listen to a couple of discourses etc. Eat a meal or two. If you can manage it, do a whole weekend-long retreat or something.

Buddhism is far more defined by its practices than its doctrines, and is very open to allowing participation in its practices without requiring adherence to its doctrines. Much more so than any other religion I know of.

If you asked members of any other faith whether they'd choose their practices over their books, they'd say no. Buddhists would probably say yes.

Preferably explore a monastery in an Asian country, and preferably not India or Nepal (they may be the homeland, but they are marginal now, except as pilgrimage destinations).

Not being racist here, but you "get" Buddhism far better when you see it in its natural setting, where people treat it as a matter-of-fact thing and a form of life practice rather than a belief system.

In America, especially as practiced by White converts (I've lived with one, in a house that was previously a Zen center), it has an exotic, over-earnest feel to it. But even that's a better introduction than books.

I didn't truly "get" Buddhism till I visited Thailand last year. I thought I did, but I was wrong.

I grew up pretty much next door to Bodhgaya and other major Buddhist historical sites. I was infatuated with Zen and read everything on the subject in grad school.

But I didn't actually get it till I visited Thailand and saw the living faith at work. I understood the philosophical appeal the same way I understand (say) existentialism, but not the life-structuring aspect.

By contrast, I didn't feel like I understood Christianity any better by visiting the Vatican. It was fun, but not particularly revealing. Christianity is to be found in its books.