In general, i access hashrefs values which i dont know their structure by looking at Data::Dumper output, and then:
$hashref->{brackets_1}->{brackets_n}{quotes}
Regarding books, i really like
Perl Cookbook, chapter 5 covers this topic.
Also, ive found Merlyn's article
List Manipulation, very useful. It was published in April 2004 Linux Magazine issue.
Finaly, you can take a look at
Steve's place lesson 7. It is really good.