rigging? see how much I have to learn

and I was checking out a few reviews of those books mentioned on Amazon... that first one by Richard Williams had some very good reviews, seems like a good book, but it also said it has absolute no computer generated images or any mention of anything to do with using a pc in it, all sketching, would it still be a good pickup for technicalities of animation?

Also that book by A/W on character rigging & animation doesnt seem suited for a beginner, from the reviews I read it assumes an intermediate/advanced knowledge of how to use Maya and some people mentioned it was rather confusing and had errors...

I was looking round for ebook's online today and came across a book called Learning Maya, i checked it out and began to work through it, it had a tiny introduction which didnt help explain much, but it has 4 projects which it helps you work through to get hands on experience, the first one is a bouncing ball, im about 1/2 way through and enjoying it, only problem is it looks like it was written for Maya version 1 or something, and I'm having trouble finding where some things are in this newer version, was this book ever rewritten for newer versions?

Sorry for asking so many questions, but its better to get all the easy questions out of the way now rather than starting up topic after topic.