Know that there are a couple of schools of thought - a more traditional econ which describes how money worked under a gold standard (prior to '71 or so) takes up the space in most schools. Unfortunately, since we create zeroes on computers and don't need to borrow dollars (we are the sole supplier), it is somewhat less than correct about how money really flows in the world today - but people have large investments in their lives built on that and they aren't going to give it up easily ;)
The other is Modern Monetary Theory, taught in a few places, one being the University of Missouri - Kansas City.
http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/wray/raymain.html . There are several papers on their website.
The value in studying both perspectives is that it helps you tell opinion from fact, and please believe me when I tell you, there is a HUGE amount of unsubstantiated opinion out there, much of it colored by politics, and it's not always easy to see where each begins and ends. The value in such reading for the autodidact is that it is instructive to find the errors in fact and logic. As goofy and bone-headed as they are, even Tea Partiers are right once in a while, and the same goes with opinions in econ.
For example - people would very much like to blame a few million homeowners for our current economic woes. But that ignores 40+ years of short-term thinking that sold our industrial soul (jobs), and made it possible for the investment banks to run a $100+ trillion Ponzi scheme. Because most people won't take a few hours and learn some of the basics of what happened, the banks and the government now collude to empty the national treasury of hundreds of billions of dollars that flow to the wealthiest people. With a little study you can be as frustrated by that as others.
Start with a fair amount of skepticism and check everything out - it's a tremendously interesting field.
You can find the more traditional thinking by just googling economics. But for the harder to find, but perhaps more accurate in their descriptions of how modern money really works, here are a couple
http://www.newdeal20.org/http://econproph.comhttp://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/ <this one actually has quizzes about modern monetary theory
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/ < more traditional, but respected in his field
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