All Wyckoff's (Rollo Tape) books are very good, Neill's book is good as well, but you have to adopt the technique to today's market place since the game is quote different. Other books on tape reading don't reflect the real technique IMHO.
A lot of it is sitting in front of the tape and watching the prints, so yes it takes time. If you want a tip, I first started by only looking at price and volume (this is old school lol) and getting the hang of that before adding bid and ask prices into the mix. It's difficult when you are new to keep your eye on four numbers coming in at a time. The right choice of stock to watch is also important.
I got very good at tape reading aapl. Probably would make me more money going back to that than how I am trading now. Anyway, any time I am tape reading I have the ticker up in 3 windows. One with all prints, one with print greater than 10,000, and one with prints greater than 100,000. That is my tip to you. I think IBM is a good one to start with.
The Nelson and Wyckoff/Rollo Tape books are free on Google books (they're in the public domain, since they were publshed before 1923).
also on nyse stocks..is it ok to route to arca or is it better to route to NYS ? also my hot keys for sell stops, sell limits, and buy stops, and buy limits orders are for some reason always executed at market...wtf?
google is fun, usually .20 spread so 4 ticks in your direction is $1.00. This is a high volatility stock and you have to be careful about your stops. This is a good stock to scalp though.