Fluff Me Do!, Source book recommendations please! Options

[SIN]

Hello,

I'm a bit of a lurker, and only a very occasional poster here on DS, so please be gentle (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I've just been reading the topic about people's favourite editions of SR and found a lot of what people are saying really rings true with me. I only started playing at the beginning of 3e (hence I haven't waded in on the topic), and I loved the setting straight-away, but the rules were a big turn off for me. Now I've been buying 4e stuff, and I find the rules much more accessible, but I'm not feeling the fluff so much.

It's weird. On the one hand, I feel like a lot of the fluff for 4e is written assuming a certain amount of prior knowledge about metaplot, which I don't have in most cases. A good case in point is the fleeting mention of SURGE in the original 4e BBB, which described almost nothing about it. I assumed on first read that SURGE had been a new wave of people turning into orks and trolls. I didn't work it out until I read Runner's Companion.

On the other hand, it also feels like a lot of of the 4e fluff isn't as in-depth as some of the 3e fluff I've read. As such, a lot of the DS die-hards, who know all the meta-plot, seem less than satisfied when they comment on the new fluff books. I've ended up buying most of the crunch, but little of the fluff for 4e because of this feeling. Recently, I've been picking up 3e fluff books, however, trying to find stuff that would still be interesting/useful and have been quite enjoying some of them, especially Dragons of the Sixth World and Sprawl Survival Guide.

So, getting to the point, two questions:

1) What source books, new or old, do people really recommend/love, whether for general interest or plot-building inspiration - bear in mind that I have only a fleeting knowledge of the metaplot (it's not that I don't want to learn about it, I just don't want to be punished for not knowing it).

2) Do people that have read it feel that the 6th World Almanac gives a genuinely decent overview of the history/geography of the 6th world - enough for someone like me to feel better versed/grounded in the universe after reading it?

Any comments welcomed. I know you guys will have interesting stuff to say.