Reddit reviews Bonsai Life Histories: The Lives of over 50 Bonsai Trees in Photos and Words

Heh, well welcome to the hobby. I must say that its been my experience that there are two... groups? in the hobby at the moment. Alot of the knowledgeable, experienced people tend to be a bit older, and hence not as computer savy. This can probably explain the lack of polished web pages devoted to bonsai.

If there is a bonsai club in your area, I'd suggest joining them and attending their meetings. There are two equi distant from where I live, and both of them have monthly meetings, demonstrations, etc. that are very informative. Both have many people who have been doing bonsai for longer than I've been alive.

If you are looking for a book, many of them will go over the same information (repotting, the basic styles, basic propagation methods, etc.) and then something else. This book is fairly decent in that it shows pictures of 50 trees at various points in their lives:

http://www.amazon.com/Bonsai-Life-Histories-Lives-Photos/dp/1552096157

Its very interesting to see the progression of a tree over a decade.

The last bit of adivce I can give is to subscribe to Bonsai Focus (http://www.bonsaifocus.com/) a bi monthly magazine devoted (obviously) to bonsai. Each issue contains a gallery of very nice bonsai, a tree critique (send a picture of a pre bonsai and getting different suggestions with drawings of how to style it), a "master class" where they demonstrate an advance technique, and a couple of styling demonstrations with explanations of why the artist chose to do it the way it was done. Plus a few other minor features... All in all, its very informative, and again, inspiring.

The Bonsai Workshop by Herb Gustafson is pretty good. It's currently $7.84 on Amazon, which is a steal. I paid $20 for my copy, and would again.

Also, Bonsai Techniques I by John Naka is an out-of-print classic that is pretty expensive for a physical copy, but it can be found online with a simple google search. It's more in-depth, but really covers all the bases.

Bonsai Life Histories is another one I like. It isn't so much a basic technique book, but it shows a bunch of trees that have progressed over many years, which I have always found inspiring. I pull that one out about once a year and glean something new from it each time. Also pretty cheap on Amazon right now.