I've learned an unbelievable amount just by sifting through the forums. Take 35 minutes a day even and just read the new posts/old posts about anything. You may not fully understand everything at first, but as you keep reading things will start to make sense and piece themselves together. Plus you can take in personal experiences which is invaluable. This is with anything also, how I learned the guitar, video editing... and like I said. the biggest thing is reading the realizations of those who have been in the industry for a while. It's like taking a shortcut without missing the journey. You also get a glimpse of what's expected to come. It's a psychological fact that people sick in a hospital who know what their recovery will be like, recover almost twice as fast than those who arn't sure what will happen during their recovery. You can relate that to anything. If you know what you problems you'll be facing, technique tricks, anything, you'll be ready for it incase they happen. Fake it 'til you make it at the least.
I came back to add that you don't necessarily need books or anything other than the internet and a "want" to be a good photographer. Sure, you need to know how to work with the lighting, white balance and use the settings on your camera but you can learn these things from practice. Trial and error. It may take longer, but you have a fuller appreciation of the hobby. When I learned photoshop for example, I took one tutorial on youtube, and from there used it as many ways as I could. Not purposefully, I wanted to. I just kept trying different ways to approach it or taking many spins on it. Just playing with it. Now I'm extremely confident with photoshop. If I don't initially know how to achieve a result, I can tinker my way to the end goal. I know my way around it and how to use options I normally wouldn't have known if I just stuck to what tutorials taught me.
There's so much information out there, sometimes you'll have to look a little bit though.
Hopefully this helps a little and makes sense.
Have fun with it and stay safe
I also saw you bought a book. That's great, now play with all the information you read about. From the start, don't read to the end and THEN start applying it, apply it right away. Have your camera with you as you go through it. I don't mean to make this into an intense and serious matter, I laugh as I say that. It's just how I've learned so much in life, and it's all applicable to everything. And again, keep it fun and light. Also, nice camera
