If my previous posts (1,2,3) have begun to persuade you to give bridge a try, I'd like to introduce you to just a few excellent books for newcomers.
Below are the only three or four you'll need for a while. You could get them one at a time, finishing one before you ordered the next one; doing it that way, you'd accumulate all of them in a few months. Nothing wrong with that approach.
But there's an argument to be made for getting at least the first three, if not all four, at the same time: you'll immediately have material covering all three key aspects of the game -- bidding, playing the hand, and defending the hand. (You'll be bidding 100% of the hands, playing 25% of the hands as "declarer," and defending 50% of the hands against declarer.) And trust me, questions on all three aspects pop up in my mind all the time; they don't wait until I've bought the proper book.
Here they are in order: Bidding, play, defense, and defense. Why a second book on defense? Because Eddie Kantar, world champion and famous teacher, is the author -- and if you enjoy having good laughs as you learn, Eddie's your guy. He makes learning a lot of fun.
