I'm a (mostly) self-taught linguist. I was always interested in syntax so I started with Carnie's (2013) Syntax: A generative introduction + few interviews with Chomsky (where I got the general idea of the philosophy behind his research and learned about PoS argument). First I was satisfied with the contents of the book, but after g oogling and reading this and that for about a year I started to question literally every possible explanation of various phenomena ( e.g. why movement in the first place? why autonomous syntax? etc.)
This made me read a few more papers and a couple of books, along with a very good blog Faculty of Language. I needed historical background, knowledge ABOUT the methodology used in modern syntax research and a lot more stuff. This is where it got really serious and hard. I also encountered a lot of irrelevant work and wasted some time.
By now I've studied enough to figure out the most influential works but few years ago I knew nothing about them. So I wonder if there is a such a list of titles one could recommend to any beginner, and, even better, an ordered list so that the beginner doesn't get confused with terminology in different theories (e.g. since ST - GB - MP of the generative enterprise are pretty different). I'd like to know other people's ideas.