ORIGINAL: da Rock
It would be to your advantage to get a copy of "Basics of R/C Model Aircraft Design" by Andy Lennon. It's an excellent book for modelers.
I have that book and I agree that it is great. I personally think it might be a bit much for a beginner though. I think it might just confuse them further when they should be concentrating on learning other fundamentals.
You will discover that it's rather difficult to learn aerodynamics from what you hear at the field.
Very true. There will be a whole bunch of "experts". A select few probably really are experts but the rest are usually full of sh**. The hard part is determining who to actually listen to. Unfortunately, many people listen only to the ones who are saying what they want to hear and ignore those telling the truth because they may not like the sound of it.