Need some book recommendations.....

Hi,
I am just starting out on a new project. I am trying to determine what to use as the back end and what to use as the front end. I have chosen to use MySQL and am leaning towards Visual Basic. I have never used either. What I was wondering was if I could I need someone to recommend some books to get me started out. Especially with the VB side of it. I need to answer the questions:
1 Which version of VB to use?
2 I want to use Visual Studio Pro 2013 as my IDE (I already have it)?
3 What other books do I need to use?
4 Are there any other tools that I need?
5 What am I missing? Probably a lot to start.

Thanks,
B.

Well, if this project is for a company or another person then you'll find some of the answers there. For instance, it is senseless having the VS 2013 IDE if the target machine is Windows 7 and less.

Why specifically MySQL. It is a good choice, I have worked with it solely with PHP which is web based. For desktops I'd really recommend Microsoft SQL Server over MySQL

Some books - the Microsoft Press books are always good ;)

Well, I have VS 2012 IDE.

MySQL is free.

A particular book - ?