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Stu, I second to the letter everything Malc has written.
Ken's book on gratings is a great book to start from a practical point of view. Keith Robinson's book on spectra and stellar physics is at the top of my astronomy book list even for someone who ISN'T interested in the practicalities of taking and processing spectra.
The other good news is, all you need to start is a camera and a star analyser. I confess got some if my best SA100 spectra by sticking it to the front of a DSLR with a bit of Blu-Tak. With nothing more complicated than that I was able record the methane absorption bands in the atmosphere of Uranus.
Malc's comment about Marmite is spot on. If you think about it, amateur astronomy focuses on nebulae, planets, galaxies, comets - everything except the stars themselves. In the end, stars are just static points of light, not very interesting. The thing about spectroscopy is that it allows you to "see" the fascinating and dynamic activity within stars - the thermonuclear reactions driving them; the shells of gas they blast into space and then energise, at a measurable fraction of the speed of light; the whirling dance of a red giant orbiting a white dwarf every two hours, bleeding hydrogen onto an accretion disk. Spectroscopy is, literally, where you get to see the action.
All for a $175 star analyser. Best value for money in the whole hobby, IMHO.
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