Never did this at school so wouldn't mind a good teach yourself type book. Any suggestions?
As an example of books I can understand, I have some Carrol Smith books and find them excellent teaching material.
I want to be able to workout things like loadpaths, and calculate loads etc. Most books I have read recommend making wood models, but this doesn't help when trying to work out real forces.

P.S. If I can get it from Amazon that would be a bonus.

Beam theory only fills a couple of pages I think perhaps you mean a book on framed structures ?

Mechanics of Materials
by James M. Gere & Stephen P. Timoshenko

Mechanics of Materials Vol 1 E j Hearn

Mechanics of Engineering Materials P. P. Benham & R.J.Crawford.

Cheers, ordered. Now lets watch the credit card wilt :-)

How about Jamie and the magic torch.

As stated above, Mechanics of Materials by James M. Gere & Stephen P. Timoshenko is a good text.

Timoshenko was one of my lecturers at Uni (Birmingham - Mech Eng). He wasn't the most interesting or charismatic lecturer, but he definately knew his stuff!

tom