I'm not a fan of learning from technical books, but that's just my style. I like figuring out exactly what I need to do and Googling it one piece at a time, side-by-side with having the docs as reference.

You could start by reading the dev guide from the top: http://developer.android.com/guide/basics/what-is-android.ht....

You should read the Activity lifecycle some ten times at least: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity..... To avoid countless headaches at the beginning, clamp your app to only portrait or only landscape mode if it makes sense.

Also read over the Intents doc a number of times as they are another crucial part of the system: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/intents/intents-fi....

The Android SDK contains various samples that will get your going quickly.

Having a G1 to test with is a good idea. They are painfully slow, so if you get the G1 right, everybody else will be happy. Quick stat: devices by platform: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve....

Designing the interface layout is pretty painless. The framework is well thought out.