PIE

[Enrikay1 at aol.com]

I do hate to waste any of your time for something so trivial, but I feel a
need to quench my curiosity.  Let me state right now that I am not a
linguist, but rather a mere undergraduate student of W. European languages at
Indiana University with a great desire to move my studies easterward within
the IE language family.  I'm sure that there are no TY, Berlitz or Pimsleur
courses for the study of PIE, but are there any books that teach the
best-we-can-at-this-time-construct PIE?  Is there some authoritative book(s),
which would help me understand PIE and consequently the development of the IE
languages as seen today?  If any one of you would be so kind as to point me
in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.  I'm very excited about
receiving more of your e-mails!

With much gratitude,
Eric

[ Moderator's comment:
  I'd like to collect the refined responses to Eric's query into a boilerplate
  response I can send out when such questions come in from time to time.  (I've
  already recommended Sihler and Meillet in a private response, thereby showing
  my prejudices.)  I will post the proposed canned response for discussion when
  I think there is some concensus.
  -- rma ]