To get a perspective on the whole "lightweight" backpacking movement, I suggest either "Lightweight Backpacking & Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Hiking", by Ryan Jordan, or "Lighten Up!", by Don Ladigan. The former is more extensive, the latter is a quicker read with a lot of illustrations.

A lot of people find that they enjoy backpacking much better if they can significantly reduce their pack weight without paying too-o-o much money to do so or overly compromising either safety or comfort. Getting it right (or at least "less wrong") to begin with can save a lot of money in cycles of replacing gear with ever lighter variants.

So I suggest that you get one of these from your local library; ask the librarian about "interlibrary loan" if your immediate library system doesn't carry either one.