For the RPG books, I like the 2nd edition tales of the lance box set. It has a good overview of Ansalon and the races and classes of the world. For the various monsters, it even included their ability scores, something that I don't think other products really did in 2e so it lets you update to 5e and take out some of the guesswork on which draconian is the strongest, etc.
The 3rd edition campaign book is also useful because it goes over primal sorcery and the power of the heart (essentially celestial sorcerers) and you might find some prestige classes that provide more crunch to convert to subclasses.
For the novels, I think the main ones I'd suggest having a read of are the Chronicles trilogy, Dragonlance Legends, I also enjoyed Dragons of a summer Flame and later the war of souls trilogy. Been plenty of others I've read, looking up the novels brings back a few memories of them.