Hmph. Missed this thread earlier somehow. 
I would not advise referencing something like Graves or Frazier as starting points of any sort. Neither of these works is particularly influential in modern Druidry. Graves is a work of fiction, and Frazier is very dated. If you want to read good, contemporary scholarship on Druidry, stick with modern historians like Ronald Hutton. But Hutton will mostly get you information about historical Druidry, not the new religious movement. For that, you have to listen to the voices of contemporary practitioners... and there is quite a lot of diversity to be had there. Each Druidic order has its own characteristic flavor. ADF is more explicitly polytheistic and has a reconstructionist bent to it. AODA has a heavy naturalist bent to it (and by "naturalist" I mean learning about nature, not philosophical naturalism). OBOD is like a Pagan-flavored version of Unitarian Universalism. All of these simplifications, of course. Visiting each organization's website plus cruising around literature gives you a better taste of the flavors. I can speak best to OBOD (to a lesser extent AODA). This here captures much of the spirit of OBOD and generally reflects my own path:
It's missing a few things I would add, and emphasizes some things that I would not. Biggest thing this poster is missing is a Love of Science. When your gods are literally things like the land, sea, and sky, studying natural sciences is an obvious way to get to know your gods.
Baloney, you don't actually know about real Druidry if you just study modern reconstructionists.
Frazer is indeed dated, - and dry, - but gives connecting ideas.
Graves' White Goddess is not a work of fiction. It covers a lot of history, and is very interesting.
You seem to be doing what others I've talked with are doing, most of whom haven't read the book, or just don't understood, concerning the movements of people and religious/mythic history. Not having read, or perhaps not understanding the book, - they single out - words, - and assume wrongly about them.
Such as the book covering Poetic Myth, - and these folks deciding the BOOK is just myth.
That is incorrect. He traces religious ideas in history - across the world, with an eye toward the Bards and the meaning behind their works.
As I've said before, I studied Archaeology, and religion. I'm interested in the flow of people, culture, language, religion, and philosophy, across the world.
Is he correct in everything? Absolutely Not. No historian is. However the majority is correct, and gives a good understanding of the whys of particular religious ideas and movements.
As I said, - it should be read with an idea as to the WHY leading to Druidry.
Read it and decide for yourselves - folks.
Here is what Good Reads has to say -
"
The White Goddess is perhaps the finest of Robert Graves's works on the psychological and mythological sources of poetry. In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities, the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.
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