Actually, you can just go to any neighbourhood libraries.
You won't believe the amount of photoshop and image retouch books available.
Learning online has their pros and cons.
Pros being easier access and you can do tutorials and read it concurrently on your machine.
However, website tutorials tends to assume that the user knows how to use everything from quickmasks and layer masks to alpha channels and filters, levels etc.
Best bet for beginners is still through books as the explanation is rather clearcut.
While friends of ed's books are good, they tend to have the "assume" syndrom. however, their macromedia flash books are one of the best in the market currently.
Personally, i feel that publishers like newriders are much better in photoshop.
These books are freely available in most libraries ard singapore.
FYI, photoshop 7 and flash mx books are already filling up the shelves.
As for image retouch or digital photography books, you can check out the photography sections.
There's a whole wide range for you to choose.
Just got a few books from taka library yesterday, and was surprised to find them quite updated.
Enjoy.