Pat, in my opinion, all you really need right now is McRae's book and a member subscription to the NALS and belong to a GOOD forum like this. I'd much rather see you spend your money on lilies than a bunch of books that you might only use for reference once in a while. Learning all about lilies is not something one learns overnight, but rather a little more with each passing year over time. A good balance in learning combines learning from books and from practical application experience in the garden.
A membership to the North American Lily Society (NALS) will get you a hardbound yearbook and four quarterly bulletins each year. New members also receive an instruction booklet called 'Let's Grow Lilies' which has quite a bit of valuable basic information. You, then also, have access to their annual Spring Seed Exchange sale where you can buy seeds of crosses made by well known lily hybridizers at cheap prices; from hybridizers and breeders from all over the world. Collect your yearbooks and quarterly bulletins and store them for future reference. The same goes for any Spring and Fall catalogs you receive from reputable grower/sellers. Save those.
On this forum, the sticky threads at the top about hybridizing, growing from seed and scaling, read much like reference book material by themselves. There is more practical information in those three threads than there is in any single reference book out there. Of course, McRae's book is a great resource for anyone.
