I never got into Shadowrun... I started playing CP2020 after being burned out on D&D and the last thing I wanted in my game was magic and elves. It seemed like some kind of homebrew D&D hack -- not the rules specifically mind you, just the concept. A few years ago, a friend left a bunch of SR books at my house and basically refused to pick them up again... "keep 'em." They're all 2nd edition, I think.
These days I have zero interest in the game mechanics, which I understand were pretty crunchy, but I'm a little more open to the setting. Is there a particular edition worth checking out? Are the 2e books I already have worthwhile? Or should I read something else as a starting point? Just to get a good sense of the setting, that is... like I said, I'm not really interested in the system.