Useful books for learning the R software and the S programming language

Robert Wilk wrote:

any useful books for learning the R statistical software?
are they pricey?

Many. "Useful" depends on the reader, though, so look around. Here's  
a starting point

http://www.r-project.org/doc/bib/R-books.html

(modesty should forbid me to point at item 18 on the list and the  
fact that Amazon US has it currently 19% discounted....)

In general R books are cheaper than statistical monographs, but more  
expensive than the large market computer science books.

and if the books recommended focus on S, how compatible will they  
be for
someone learning R?

Such books are strongly outnumbered by now. One important book from  
that group is Venables+Ripley's Modern Applied Statistics with S  
explicitly addresses R issues.

thank you in advance for your help.
P.S.
specialized survey statistical procedures? Is R good at that?

Not R in itself, but the "survey" package for it is rumoured to be  
state of the art, and its author has a book on it in its final stages.


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