Bjeiss, this is a topic that comes up, regularly - I recall asking the same question when I first started. Marianne Fons has a great book - Quilter's Complete Guide. Better Homes and Gardens has a good one (can't recall the name) and I like the Quilter's Complete Visual Guide - Ellen Pahl. Eleanor Burns has excellent books with good directions. Carol Doak has good books for paper piecing. A lot of people like her book, Your First Quilting Book (or it should be). If you run a search on Amazon they have the "listmania" lists off to the left where people have made recommendations. You can take a look at a few of them and see what books keep getting recommended, and why.
This is SUCH a fun and rewarding hobby and quilters are friendly and helpful.