Welcome!  As for reading material, well depends on what you are interested in.  There is a number of books that can fall under required reading, but it all depends on where you are looking to go.  Stealing the Network is a decent series of books.  I particularly enjoyed "How to own the idenity"
http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Network-How-Own-Identity/dp/1597490067
It was setup more as a story and covered some decent technical stuff but you really didn't need to have a background to understand it.

If you are looking into more hacking type books, Counter-Hack Reloaded is a decent read.  If you are looking for How-To's well, there are a number of them but none will make you a Pro overnight.  Experience is you best bet.

Also check out some of the other threads, we have lots of education related topics where most of your questions have probably been answered.  Good luck in your journey to ethical hackery.

Yes, welcome!

If you haven't already, check out this thread. That will probably answer the majority of your questions since you seem to be starting from a similar place.