yes I agreed ! they are excellent books if you want indepth knowledge and you do not need to be an expert to start reading his book, the only down side I see the master series is they are time comsuming to read, this would good if you have some time on your side (i.e if you know a few months ago that you going to be doing this)
the best way to manage the network for your case I think is to start doing hands-on, when you see an issue or something you dont know how, list some specific question and post them here or search o n Microsoft's web site,
that is my 2-cent
XM