Fair questions. I personally mostly speak to non tech people or curious nocoiners, so I get different questions.
I've read a very good eli5 explaination of the lightning, but unfortunately for you, the article was in french.
The first three chapters of A. Antanopoulos' Mastering Lightning are excellent and will answer most of these questions.
Yes, can recommend Mastering Lightning! However, I have a background in computer science so I don't know if people with no such background will find it as easy to understand. But I think A. Antonopoulos does try to assume no previous knowledge.
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I found the first three chapters to be very accessible, but may be in just biased.
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