kellee's blog

Here are the one's I've been using:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/julianbleecker/165884376/in/photostream/

And "Macromedia Flash 8: Visual QUickstart Guide" (Peachpit) and "Macromedia Flash 8 Advanced" (Peachpit) and "Essential Action Script 2.0" (O'Reilly)

I just keep the stack of books — the better tutorial-based ones where the QUickstart Guide (3 days to get through the rudiments), and then I went to Flash 8 (Friends of Ed) and I felt pretty comfortable, although I find the Flash IDE about as lousy as they get..

There are plenty of tutorials online to get you started. Find a project that interests you, and then figure out how to execute it.

I learned online, it seemed allot more direct, most books out there are full of useless info.

As an Adobe Certified Flash Instructor and Developer I use the "Training from the Source" for beginner courses.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321384032/sr=8-9/qid=1153155222/ref=pd_bbs_9/102-4494466-7588933?ie=UTF8

Good luck, hope that helps.

Don't get frustrated, it takes time to get used to allot of the conventions in Flash, eventually they will seem like second nature. And I hate to say it, but Flash 9 is coming quick and without breaking NDA, allot of changes are coming!
;)

I'd also recommend signing up on the FlashCoder's email list for near-realtime answers to any and all Flash questions.

http://chattyfig.figleaf.com/