Well, the best place to ask about Flash is at
www.flashkit.com. They have very good forums there, not to mention tons of great resources.
For books, I highly recommend Sam's Teach Yourself Flash 5 in 24 Hours for beginners to intermediate. Flash 5 Bible is supposed to be good too, though I haven't used it.
For intermediate and up, the consensus seems to lean toward the "Friends of Ed" book series (
www.friendsfoed.com). Start off with Foundation Flash 5 and Foundation ActionScript, leading to Flash 5 Studio, ActionScript Studio and Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio.
Here's to your Flash endeavors!