My favorite book for herb history, uses, and pictures is The Complete Book of Herbs by Leslie Bremness.

For information about your local plant life, you may want to visit your local Arboretum. I know that the Arboretum here in Asheville is a beautiful garden park for hiking with great plantings of labeled native plant life. It allows you to see the uses of the native plants and get great ideas for plant combinations.

Here's a garden tour mansion and arboretum in RI:
http://www.blithewold.org/

A free park arboretum in Maine:
http://www.pinetreestatearboretum.org/

One in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts:
http://www.pollyhillarboretum.org/

And ours here in Asheville, NC:
http://www.ncarboretum.org/Horticulture/gardens.htm

If you do a Google search using "arboretum" and your state you'll get a nice listing of places in your area. If you do a search using "native plants" and your state you'll get a great list of gardens, informational websites, and nurseries that promote native plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: carolina native nursery

tikva, welcome to herbs! I'm in the northeast too, if you are near me, come free to visit my garden some time. I have over 250 types of herbs. Some good field guides are:
Weeds of the Northern U.S. and Canada by Royer & Dickinson
Peterson Field Guide to Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants

Pics of herbs, in addition to any Leslie Bremness book as mentioned by granite:
Magic and Medicine of Plants by Reader's Digest
Growing 101 Herbs That Heal by Tammi Hartung

That will get you started. Then there are hundreds of books (and I have lots in my personal library) that run the gamut of culinary, folkloric, medicinal, landscape, etc. Just depends on what your focus is from there.

Places where I have ordered unusual herb plants AND have been happy with customer service include:
www.horizonherbs.com
www.crimsonsage.com
www.companionplants.com
www.possumcreekherbs.com
Richters Herbs only for seeds and then still expect a LONG wait. For plants, I have ordered a couple times and not been happy with the plants or service.

I have a Reader's Digest book called "The Magic and Medicine of Plants" copyright 1986. Each plant described has a dedicated page. The illustrations are lovely drawings accompanied by native habitat photos. The plants are presented by their common names in alphabetic order. The Latin names and family are included. The book discusses ancient beliefs, common uses, scientific evidence (if any), habitat, range and identification. There is a chapter on poisonous plants, a chapter of recipes, and a chapter on herbal crafts.

Of course, one needs several herbal books for good reference material. Of the books I have, this one is my favorite. Usually I consult several sources when researching an herb.

I am offering a third kudos for "The Magic and Medicine of Plants" by Readers Digest. It is my favorite one for identifying Herbs since it has both illustrations and excellent photographs. It's a bit disappointing when it comes to stating the different uses for Herbs though. I think being a Reader Digest book, they opted for "better safe than sorry" and tend to discourage the use of many medicinal Herbs, especially the more potent ones.

I second the suggestion on the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants. It is one of my favorites for identifying wild medicinals. Newcomb's Wildflower Guide is another nice one. It has a key that helps you identify plants based upon flower types, colors, and leaf structures.

If you want pictures, I can offer no better books than those published by DK. If you go to the advanced search page for books at Amazon and enter "DK" in the publisher field and "Herb" in the title field, you will get some of these titles listed. One of my favorites being New Encyclopedia of Herbs & Their Uses by DK Publishing and Deni Brown. The pictures are gorgeous and the write-ups are nice. The entries are mostly plant info and general herbal usage information - the kind of stuff a new herb lover would enjoy (old ones too.) The book is organized by scientific names, but there is a list at the back of common names and their corresponding scientific names.

Some of my favorite herb sources are:

Richters (www.richters.com) - Unlike a previous poster, I've had great experiences with them over a number of years.
Nichols Garden Nursery (www.nicholsgardennursery.com)
Pinetree Garden Seeds (www.superseeds.com) - One of the cheapest places to get packets of seeds I know.
Horizon Herbs (http://www.horizonherbs.com)
Johnny Seeds (www.johnnyseeds.com)
Prairie Moon Nursery (www.prairiemoon.com) - a terrific place for native plants and seeds you won't find elsewhere
ForestFarm Nursery (www.forestfarm.com) - wow. very little plants and tree-wise isn't in their catalog.

Enjoy!

Fata Morgana