I have listen to some of Alan Watts.
The important thing for me and one thing that I remember is the idea of dropping the raft:

" However, this irritatingly elusive quality of the vision to which the finger points has an extremely simple explanation, an explanation which has to do with what I said at the beginning about getting rid of the raft when you have crossed the river, about taking religion as a
medicine but not as a diet. For purposes of understanding the point, we must take the raft as representing the ideas or words or other symbols whereby a religion or a philosophy expresses itself, whereby it points at the moon of reality. As soon as you have understood the words in
their plain and straightforward sense, you have already used the raft.
You have reached the opposite bank of the river. All that remains now is to do what the words say-to drop the raft and go walking on the dry land. And to do this, you MUST drop the raft.

In other words, you cannot, at this stage, think about religion and practice it at the same time. To see the moon, you must forget the pointing finger, and simply look at the moon."
http://www.mindfulnessclasses.com/classroomTalk/19991109/messages/694.html

That in one sense, saved my life- or it was a turning point. Or at least was significant enough for me to still remember after hearing it over a decade or so ago.
[According to reference this was given in 1999- so it's not exactly the talk I heard]. In my search for this quote, there was also this:

Crossing a river

Which didn't have the quote I was looking for but it was interesting to listen to.

Anyhow, I would say that Alan Watts is a very good pick.

PS: I wouldn't say I'm particularly adapt at dropping the raft, but it seems to me be a useful thing to keep in mind.