Going to strip and paint my car, need advice and a recommendation for a book about it

I second the opinion not to take it down to bare metal unless you want to potentially go down a rust chasing and body work rabbit hole that could get you to the point where you just give up. They make some really good epoxy primers these days that stick to nearly anything. I would have no worries about spraying it over the existing base coat and starting my foundation at that point instead of going all the way to bare metal.

Initially I thought that single stage would be easier for a DIY job but it really is not and is more difficult to spray.

There are a lot of highly recommended brands that aren't high dollar PPG stuff that perform very well. Just gotta do your research online and figure out what you want. If it's your first time spraying and you get expensive PPG paint, you might just wind up with a big orange peel mess if you don't get it done perfectly the first time. Problem with single stage is even if you spray it perfectly, you're already on borrowed time the second it cures.