I was hoping for a more organized approach rather than going through one blog after another.

I understand. But if you're going to ask a community like this for help, it usually helps to show that you've done some leg-work of your own already. Otherwise you risk having your question come off as a variation of "do my homework for me".

Saying "I read these 6 blog posts, and came up with these 3 ideas about how to start, but I'm not sure how to pick between them", for example, would be a question that people would generally be more motivated to respond to. YMMV of course.

FWIW, to give you one concrete suggestion, the Programming Collective Intelligence book is pretty good.

Thanks for the advice @mindcrime. Will keep that in mind.

And will surely give that book a read.