This is, of course, just my personal opinion, but here are the books I'd recommend reading:
General Info Books:
The Conscientious Marine Aquarist by Bob Fenner: The single best general book I've read on starting a saltwater tank. Bob is a diety.
Book of Coral Propagation, Volume 1 by Anthony Calfo: The single worst titled book I've read on saltwater aquaria

Yes, it has quite a bit of info about propagating corals, but it's also got really excellent sections on general reefkeeping. I think a lot of people probably steer clear of this book, thinking it's focused on being a coral farmer. It's one of my favorites.
The Reef Aquarium: Science, Art, and Technology, Vol. 3 by Delbeek and Sprung: A much more in-depth discussion of reefkeeping techniques than The Conscientious Marine Aquarist, so it's possibly more technical than you may want. But it's an amazing resource.
Corals Books:
Aquarium Corals : Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History by Eric Borneman: Eric's book is (for me) the definitive general book on corals.
Corals: A Quick Reference Guide by Julian Sprung: less detail here than Eric's book, but much easier to quickly look up specific corals. Together, they give a decent idea about care requirements.
The Reef Aquarium vols. 1 & 2 by Delbeek and Sprung: These two books (vol. 1 covers "hard" corals and vol. 2 covers "soft" corals) go into quite a bit of detail about their respective subjects. However, they're not really setup for looking up specific genera, so these books are less of a reference guide.
Non-cnidarian inverts (crabs, shrimp, etc) Books:
Invertebrates: A Quick Reference Guide by Julian Sprung: a good reference to some of the most popular inverts kept in aquariums.
Reef Invertebrates: An Essential Guide to Selection, Care and Compatibility by Anthony Calfo and Bob Fenner: another excellent reference to some of the most popular inverts. Together with Sprung's book, you'll get a pretty good overview of the current general consensus on caring for most non-coral inverts.
Again, these are just my personal opinions. As you can probably tell, I'm a fan of the works of Bob Fenner and Anthony Calfo. Perhaps it's just their writing style?

Anyway, I hope this helps!