what to read

Guide du Fromage by Pierre Androuet
The english edition is old and out of date and still a great resource, you can probably find one on www.abebooks.com for less than $30. Well worth the effort and expenditure.
The Cheese Primer by Steve Jenkins
A fine "101" cornerstone book, by the man who has done more for specialty cheese retailing in New York City than anyone.
The Cheese Plate by Max McCalman
From the maitre fromagier at Artisanal comes his take on a cornerstone book. Not as complete as the "Primer" but well worth the time and some excellent food porn photography
Cheese: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Best by Max McCalman
His 102 (or is it 201) book, a superb consumer's guide to the best cheeses in the world and what to pair with them. The pairing ideas are worth the price alone; he goes well beyond the conventional wisdom.
American Farmstead Cheese by Paul Kinstedt
Truly one for the curd nerds. This is an intro text for everyone interested in learning cheesemaking at the University level.
The World of French Cheese by Patrick Rance
Okay, this one is grad level stuff, and a beautiful 600 pages in which nearly 100 are devoted to the idiosyncracies of geography. It's dense and wonderful and worth searching the rare book sites for it.

A few blogs
http://saxelbycheese.blogspot.com/
Anne Saxelby runs the coolest cheese stand in town, an American artisanal cheese shop in the Essex Market on the Lower East Side.
www.curdnerd.com
needs no explanation
www.cheesebyhand.com
The blog of Sasha Davies and Micahel Claypool, who drove across the country and back in 2006 visiting many of the major creameries that are putting American cheesemaking on the international map