I would strongly recommend not reading the FAA Instrument Flying Handbook
I would agree to some extent with the US specific stuff, but all the info on instrumentation, icing and met etc still apply.
And I speak from experience, having done a US/FAA IR years ago, and recently passing my EASA ATPL exams (none of which helped with actual understanding of how to file IFR and operate IFR within Europe, asymmetric committal heights, approach bans etc) and passing my gold-plated EASA CBIR skills-test a few weeks back (which I thought along with the "training" was an utter crock of ****e - just do NBD holds and test routes over and over until you can fly the test profile with your eyes closed) I'd say the FAA Instrument Handbook is a very useful tool to gain knowledge from.
