hedging your personal portfolio with options

What trading platform do you use? If you use TD Ameritrade, they have some sweet educational "classes" you can take for free, assuming you already have money in your account. They break it down very well, and gives you the basic knowledge behind it. They also tailor it to their options platform specifically, which makes it more relevant. Book-wise, i'm not too sure. I'm sure others can comment on that, but I would say your best bet besides what I just said would be to research the different types of derivative products and get a gist of how they work. Gain the understanding of how a simple naked call/put works, then move to more complicated products such as a strangle or vertical spread.

Same goes for eTrade, that's where I learned. I'm sure all the platforms have similar informational videos.

you can check out the CBOE website for decent intro stuff as well. However, I suggest you take a quick peek at how much it will cost you to hedge your position using options. Depending on what platform you trade thru, the types of stocks you are buying, and the amount you are investing, you may find it to be a good way to burn thru your money more than anything. You may benefit from looking at different type of sell orders as another way to potentially limit your downside without paying premium and needing to continue to roll options (these orders have their own risks as well however).