I am not sure about further 'reading', but the youtuber Mental Outlaw has a number of videos that do a pretty decent job of introducing and explaining I2P as a concept, as well as some videos that walk you through at least one way to do the actual setup process.

Though, some of those may be slightly out of date by now, those vids are I think a few years old at this point.

There's also the difference between I2P proper, which I believe is still done wholly in Java, and I2PD, which is basically the same I2P, but rewritten in ... either C or C++.

And, depending on how you're going to want to use I2P on your system... as in uh, just a shunt or mode for a specific program, vs trying to reroute your whole OS's traffic through it... that gets messy and complicated fast, depending on your setup, and exactly what you want to do.

Also, depending on your ISP / router situation, you may or may not have to futz with opening a port for I2P on your router firewall.

I'm wondering the same thing! If you get an answer, would you mind letting me know, if it's not too much trouble? I've read a lot about it, but it still feels like I'm missing/not understanding most of it. That may just me a 'me & my crappy brain' issue, though.