Thanks for visiting the site.
I do recommend the Deshew's books, but I think what you will get out of them will depend greatly on your
current understanding of the
weather as they can be both pretty large/overwhelming reads.
Even though Christa and I are just starting out with the aim of getting to a cruising life, I've got lots of experience with the weather as I'm a helicopter pilot. Now, that being said, I was far from an expert in avn weather and I would rate myself as just on the + side of "knowing enough to be dangerous" when it comes to maritime weather, but I do have enough of a base to understand what the books are talking about, and to
head out on my own.
I would recommend reading Surviving The Storm first, which may seem counter-intuitive, as you may think you need the theory before reading other's personal experiences, but I think if you read through it quickly, more so as you would something for entertainment/interest, making note of those items you don't understand, and then have that with you when you read the Mariner's Weather Handbook, I think you may retain/learn more since it will create a link to the previous book. The .pdf are both hyperlinked through the TOC, so easy to use as a reference.
Another one that may help you before you tackle the Dashews is Handling Storms at Sea from Hal Roth. It is not very big, uses personal and other's experience to lay out his 5 steps of what to do when the weather gets progressively worse. I also have the Pardey's Storm Tactics, but I haven't read it yet.
Again, there may be some things that you won't understand WRT the vessel and weather depending on where you're starting from, but as before, make a list, keep reading, ask question to those you have access to personally and via fora like this one, and eventually you have to go out and experience it first hand
There are lots of other books about sailing and weather obviously, and someone is likely to pipe in here to suggest some. (Perhaps better to start a new thread lest the mods get upset with us)
Check on Amazon and the like, and you can also look to US
Power Squadrons:
www.usps.org; and
Canada Power and Sail Squadrons:
www.cps-ecp.ca; (who uses a lot of the same manuals)
; as both have weather courses either in house or self-study.
Royal Yachting Association (RYA), American Sailing Assoc (ASA), Sail
Canada, etc will all have courses on weather and
navigation with access to an instructor, or at least a person of experience, which may be appropriate for you. Especially navigation/piloting which I think requires practical time and someone there to guide/mentor/teach/instruct as you go. I'm sure someone will argue otherwise, but it's better to learn form other's mistakes/experience than to have to make them all yourself, hence my recommendation for actual instruction (or supervision) and course. Even if only self-study, a course may serve as the motivation you need to stick with it and learn towards the testing requirements.
I don't know a thing about
celestial navigation I'm afraid, so I can't help you there. I would just look online as you are for any recommendation. I will eventually get to it before we venture too far off shore. The aforementioned organizations can help you there as they can for weather.
Good luck, have fun as you go, and we'll see you out there.