Please do not ignore the other author, Peter Kronheimer. Based on all of the material I've read, I do not agree with your belief about the book. I think it is more detailed than you will find elsewhere which covers all of that material. Here are some useful alternatives though:

Take that book and replace the gauge group $SU(2)$ by $SO(3)$. That's done here, Petrie-Randall's "Connections, definite forms, and four-manifolds".

If you care more about easier digestion and less about whether it is sketchy, the closest thing I can think of to Donaldson-Kronheimer's book is Freed-Uhlenbeck's "Instantons and four-manifolds".

For rigorous yet digestive background, I recommend Booss-Bleecker's "Topology and analysis: the Atiyah-Singer index formula and gauge-theoretic physics". Other relevent material, which has a lot of explanations/comments but I don't think you'll find them complete nor rigorous, are Gompf-Stipsicz' "4-manifolds and Kirby calculus" and Scorpan's "The wild world of 4-manifolds".

Please do not ignore the other author, Peter Kronheimer. Based on all of the material I've read, I do not agree with your belief about the book. I think it is more detailed than you will find elsewhere which covers all of that material. Here are some useful alternatives, though:

Take that book and replace the structure group $SU(2)$ by $SO(3)$. This route is taken in Petrie-Randall's "Connections, definite forms, and four-manifolds".

If you care more for easy digestion and less about whether it is sketchy, the closest thing I can think of to Donaldson-Kronheimer's book is Freed-Uhlenbeck's "Instantons and four-manifolds".

For rigorous yet digestive background, I recommend Booss-Bleecker's "Topology and analysis: the Atiyah-Singer index formula and gauge-theoretic physics". Other relevent material, which has a lot of explanations/comments but not complete and not always rigorous, are Gompf-Stipsicz' "4-manifolds and Kirby calculus" and Scorpan's "The wild world of 4-manifolds".

Please do not ignore the other author, Peter Kronheimer. Based on all of the material I've read, I do not agree with your belief about the book. I think it is more detailed than you will find elsewhere which covers all of that material. But for the pieces:

For the background, I would definitely recommend Booss-Bleecker's "Topology and Analysis: The Atiyah-Singer Index Formula and Gauge-Theoretic Physics". Other relevent material, which has a lot of explanations/comments but I don't think you'll find them complete nor rigorous, are Gompf-Stipsicz' "4-manifolds and Kirby calculus" and Scorpan's "The wild world of 4-manifolds".

And if you care more about easier digestion and less about whether it is sketchy, the closest thing I can think of to Donaldson-Kronheimer's book is Freed-Uhlenbeck's "Instantons and Four-Manifolds".

Please do not ignore the other author, Peter Kronheimer. Based on all of the material I've read, I do not agree with your belief about the book. I think it is more detailed than you will find elsewhere which covers all of that material. Here are some useful alternatives though:

Take that book and replace the gauge group $SU(2)$ by $SO(3)$. That's done here, Petrie-Randall's "Connections, definite forms, and four-manifolds".

If you care more about easier digestion and less about whether it is sketchy, the closest thing I can think of to Donaldson-Kronheimer's book is Freed-Uhlenbeck's "Instantons and four-manifolds".

For rigorous yet digestive background, I recommend Booss-Bleecker's "Topology and analysis: the Atiyah-Singer index formula and gauge-theoretic physics". Other relevent material, which has a lot of explanations/comments but I don't think you'll find them complete nor rigorous, are Gompf-Stipsicz' "4-manifolds and Kirby calculus" and Scorpan's "The wild world of 4-manifolds".