I want to write my own wordpress plugin.

Does anyone know where I can find a lits of hooks and filters and what they do?

Also, is there a book that is a good reference for people who want to write wordpress plugins?

I am not sure if there are books for that, but there are guides provided by wordpress itself:

Action : http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference
Filter : http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference

Hope it helps.

I think that it would be just as frustrating to build such functionality into the core without changing the plugins api drastically.There are guides provided by wordpress.Runs when a post is changed from private to published status.That was easy,its like removing windows activation found at my site.The benefits of filtering your WordPress theme and adding taking advantage of custom WordPress hooks.