A good beginner book is The Complete Joy of Homebrewing by Papazian. I haven't brewed in a couple years now, but it's kind of enjoyable even before drinking the beer. Sanitation is the key and, unless the beer is still hot, nothing can touch it that hasn't been sanitized in a bleach/water solution.
I don't like the basic beer making kits because I don't like their plastic buckets and cheap cappers. Those buckets are too easily contaminated and those cheap cappers would have made me quit after the first batch. Get glass carboys instead and you'll want two to start. One should be the larger (7 gallon?) size and the second and any additional ones you get later can be the standard 5 gallons. I have four, which allows me to have up to three batches going at a time.
I also recommend the cappers that you slide a bottle under with one hand and pull on a lever with the other. Other than for those two things, the kits have all the other important stuff, although I like spring operated bottle fillers and I don't think kits generally include those. You'll need bottles too and I like the 22 - 24 oz bottles because that's half as many bottles to wash and cap. If you're in a bottle deposit state you can usually buy empties from stores that sell the microbrews and other beers that come in that size. You can't use twist-top bottles and the darker the glass the better. Light is an enemy of beer.
Although I'm not a fan of the basic equipment kits, I do recommend you start with a simple beer kit. Keep it simple the first time or two and then start buying ingredients for all the recipes you'd like to try. Start with simple recipes too and gradually let it get complicated. I never reached all-mash brewing, because of kitchen space and ambition deficiencies, but many reach that level. If you can get one or two people to brew with you, it'll be a lot easier and can be a real good time.
You can start drinking homebrew within a couple weeks of bottling, but you'll find homebrew generally improves with age. Assuming you used good sanitation. I've brewed some porters and stouts that weren't so good at one month and were spectacular after a year. I still remember an oatmeal stout that I kept one bottle past two years and it was so good I wish I would have kept all of them so long. Ignore the Budweiser propaganda about fresh beer. Some English styles are best that way but most beers improve with age.
I'm glad you asked the question because writing all this makes me want to head over to the homebrew store and start another batch or two.