If you're relatively new to mentalism and are interested in reading some quality work, I recommend getting 13 Steps to Mentalism by Tony Corinda. It's a definitive source on mentalism with a lot of simple, practical material common to the mentalism community. You'll learn about predictions, mindreading, second-sight... everything you can ask for.
A decent stepping stone from that would be the Barrie Richardson books, Theatre of the Mind and Act II. These books build off the principles established in the Corinda book really well. Again, they are filled with quality material for the close-up performer as well as the parlour and stage performer in mentalism. There's some awesome, awesome work on the Any Card at Any Number plot. I fully recommend these books for anyone interested in learning more about that.
Further learning can be found in Mind, Myth, and Magick by TA Waters. This book is pretty dry, but filled with awesome material for the bizarre magician and hardcore mentalist. Some of the effects are more difficult to pull off, but I think are very well structured for the mature mentalist.
Another favorite book of mine is the Artful Mentalism of Bob Cassidy. If you're interested in billet work, this is an awesome resource to have. The Name/Place routine is so hard-hitting and plays really well close-up. It's relatively easy to do and also acts as a great reputation maker. In effect, one spectator is asked to write down the name of a famous person on a scrap of paper. The other writes down the name of a city. One of these scraps is eliminated by burning it in an ashtray. Without ever looking at either scrap, the mentalist accurately divines the famous person's name written on the remaining scrap. As a kicker, he reads the mind of the other spectator and divines the city written on the burned scrap. When performed well, this gives audiences goosebumps. So nicely structured that it's impossible to backtrack the method.
If you're more into visual learning, get your hands on Derren Brown's The Devil's Picturebook. I have the old VHS casette, but I hear he offers DVDs on his site now. It's well worth its steep price. Also look for his lecture DVD from International Magic. It's entertaining and really informative. There's some awesome play on dual reality displayed on it that you'll learn a lot from. Agin, it's more advanced material, but if you give it the attention it deserves, you'll benefit from it immensely.
I admittedly have a newfound passion for mentalism. I'm incorporating it into my work a lot these days, and I think people are responding to it better than magic on most occasions. If you've any questions about any of the resources I listed here or just want to talk about mentalism more thoroughly, don't hesitate to get in touch. I'd love to talk shop.
RS.