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I am going to be playing primarily live mtt's
If that's the case I don't really think you need any books. Maybe the Kill Phil and Kill Everyone books are a necessity but honestly you probably don't need to read em to beat live mtts. I've never read a tourney book in my life and have played >700 mtts on just one site and I have an roi over 10% during the past three years. Looking at exclusively nlh tourneys between 5 and 20 dollars a pop, my roi is >22%. I've always believed that the mind is the most powerful weapon at the poker table and this will always be true imo. Thanks John Rambo.
I suggest you play a bunch of tourneys online over the next few years if you really wanna get better at tourney poker. Here's my study guide for you and others that are in the same boat:
1) download equilab, which is free, or any equity calculator. Then study the important spots that come up frequently. Hint: relatively speaking, the river is the most infrequent decision point that you will encounter, yet the bets are the biggest. So there's a trade off of learning ev there. However, I think that nailing down some decent, approved, suggested, tried and true starting ranges will benefit you very much, perhaps more than any postflop study. Most equity calculators come with suggested ranges. These may be tweaked for tourney play, which is very dependent on not only your stack, but the other stacks involved.
2) Study flop texture and how it affects betsizing and range construction.
3) Study turn and river situations.
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When it comes down to making decisions at the table at game speed, I like to keep it as simple as possible. If you do all of the above, you will be in a much better position to make the most profitable play without stressing over the little stuff that will only distract you.
Most importantly, above all else, is some great advice that I got across the chess board way back when:
"Make a plan, and stick to it."
So if your plan is to build a big pot with a strong hand vs a spewy player in the hopes of stacking him, never ever ever change your mind in the middle of the hand and level yourself into folding. That would be a terrible mistake. You got the desired result and you should go for 1st place by hoping to stack him or her. So what if he shoved over your bet for 6 pots? You have a read and you built a big pot with a good hand. Folding here would be a major disaster. You're gonna lose sometimes of course to coolers, but the nature of poker profits is in the law of reciprocal events. Everyone loses to coolers, with the exception of the super nits that are too scared to lose their stack. These very tight players will often cash and make money, however you will only see them win tourneys on rare occasions when they run super hot. In most cases, you'll see them milking a short stack near the bubble and they will often lose to bad hands. They constantly blame bad luck. What they don't realize is that they are missing tons of betting and calling value earlier in the tourney that would help them win much more often.
Ok I'm gonna stop rambling now.
good luck.
