Nice talking to you too old friend. Probably friends and co-workers in Atlantis and in Egypt at some point(s)....
Some good astro. books in my experience: Stephen Arroyo's
Chart Interpretation Handbook.
Isabel M. Hickey's
Astrology A Cosmic Science is pretty good.
The Astrologers Handbook by Sakonian and Acker is pretty good.
And once you get the basics more down, Stephen Arroyo's
Astrology, Karma, and Transformation is perhaps the best more metaphysical astrology book i have ever read.
Btw-- One big problem i have found in astrology, which you will probably not see in any of the commercial type books out there...(or even in these books i mentioned) Is the question of the validity of "first breath"
Most astrologers out there believe that a chart has to be calculated for the exact moment of first breath, or right when a person is born...
It may be a little more complicated than that unfortunately...
I've found in my own research, and in studying the Edgar Cayce readings, that it is not so black and white as that...
Often the Soul does 'complete' the personality close to actual physical birth, but not always... (i've found on average about 25 to 35% percentage of charts need to be majorily adjusted) There can be many hours difference both ways (before, or after physical birth)...
This makes things a little more tricky, but i have developed a fairly consistent, specific, and holistic system of physical look indications of the birth chart, which are most related to what astrologers call the "Rising" or "Ascendant" sign.. This factor corresponds to that actual exact time of birth...
Basically, if when you look into things, and your Rising Sign doesn't 'fit you' much, and there are no Planets close to it (within 12 degrees), then it might not actually be your Rising. In that case, you can contact me and i can give you a suggestion or two, this doesn't take long and its free of charge. I have also written many in-depth and unique articles on astrology relating it to other metaphysics theories, so if you are interested i can send some via email... But it might help to read one or two books, do some I-net research, etc. to get a handle on the basics a little first, otherwise my ramblings just might confuse the heck out of you.
Seemingly there are many, many astrology books out there which focus on more shallow and purely personality themes--nor very indepth or intelligent, nor have i seen a lot of very good stuff on the I-net (from my perspective). Course you have the magazines and newspapers
In Light,
Justin