Front End Dev seeking guidance

I'm a Front End Dev seeking to add that crucial server-side/database knowledge to my understanding of end to end web dev. I'm particularly interested in learning how to set up server side responses to my AJAX and JSON/JSONP requests. Also, I'm thinking of a "simple" finances management app (though we'll see how long it remains simple) to learn some basics and move on from there to e-commerce, blogs and social apps. Then who knows? My question is, are there any accepted "norms" for great books or how tos that I can take as guidance towards mastering the fundamentals? I favor OOP techniques in my JS and would like to make sure that I go for best-practices when it comes to my PHP scripting as well. I am looking for exemplary examples of code, not so much books or tutorials that explain things to death. An aside is when is it appropriate to start learning a framework such as CodeIgniter? I rely on JS libraries and can imagine that the PHP is no different (but I want to make sure I know what is going on "under the hood"). I realize this post lacks focus, but as soon as I am able to get some general guidance, any further requests will be more to the point. Thanks for your understanding as I get my bearings. Looking forward to becoming broader in my knowledge of creating web apps and can't wait for suggestions from the community! Regards, Jerome