William,
I am a bit confused by your two posts. Below, is what you wrote in your Russ Whiteny post and then seem to have changed your mind in this post. Could you please tell us what has changed your mind??
The Whitney books are average as their layout is not very modern and there are 4 books and no instruction where to start. Rajan's Home Study course in comparaison is just in another league. The paperbacks are mostly useless. One is really useless as it was written in the 1980s, the two others have good tips if you're a yank I suppose, but apart from keeping up the positive attitude, they're not much use.
Neil