"I recommend this. Reading it is better than not reading it, and you may not have been aware of its existence."
The recommender is in no position to know whether your next-best alternative was reading another work on the subject or reloading hacker news or taking a nap.
>I would never say instead of.
When you recommend something, you're implicitly advocating that it be read in preference to other works on the matter.
It makes no sense to say "I recommend this, but it's no better than anything else."