What are some good books?
There are two excellent books. Paul Tradelius's book (available through Model Airplane News) is particularly good for beginners. He presents the material in an order and a depth that is well suited to getting started. A more encyclopedic book is the one by Ray Hostetler. This book goes into great detail on all topics, and is a book to grow into. Ray's book mixes beginner info and info necessary only for advanced pilots, and consequently can be a bit overwhelming at first. There's a lot of stuff in there that you won't need to delve into for quite a while. I would recommend getting both of these books.
What accessories should I get?
There are a million accessories that you can buy. There are a relative few that are indispensible, or almost so. I'd put the following items on the short list: a prop balancer, a pitch gauge, a pair of ball link pliers, and a receiver battery tester. You will need a standard assortment of tools such as needle nose pliers, screw drivers, hex wrenches, etc. You'll also need a starter and starter battery.
What about electrics?
There are a couple of pretty good electric helis on the market. One is made by Kyosho (the Concept EP), and one is made by Kalt (the Kalt Whisper). These machines are small, light, delicate, and squirrely. Not the thing to try to learn on. They are more novelty items for experienced R/C heli pilots.

Controls on a heli
What is cyclic? Collective?
On most R/C helis (and full-scale helis for that matter), the main blades can change their (so-called) pitch angle. What this means is that if you sit the heli on a table and look at the tip of one of the main blades, the chordline of the blade can be tilted through a range of angles by the servos. In this sense, the rotor disk of a heli is a bit like a variable-pitch prop on an airplane. If the heli is hovering and you wish to make it climb straight up, you increase the pitch of the main blades, and increase the throttle so that the engine can overcome the increased drag and keep the blades turning at the same speed. The increased blade pitch results in more lift, and so the heli climbs. (With R/C helis, unlike R/C airplanes, engine RPM's are supposed to stay the same over (most of) the throttle range.

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