Hi,
“Evolution and taxonomy of birds” is a pretty broad subject that could encompass a number of topics, but here’s what sprang to my mind that should be accessible and interesting to a sophisticated novice. (I'm a bird family lister, so this reflects my biases.)
BOOKS:
“Bird Families of the World: An Invitation to the Spectacular Diversity of Birds,” David Winkler, et al. (Lynx/Cornell; 2015). This is an excellent introduction to higher order taxonomy. The book itself has a brief introduction laying out the basic scientific approach to creating higher order taxonomy, and then most of the book is devoted to accounts of the individual orders and families of birds. Each family account includes a description of behavior, habitat, range, etc. as well as relationships with other bird families. There are also photos and excellent illustrations of a member of each genus within the family. It is, however, a heavy and somewhat pricey coffee table book. There are other less expensive family level surveys if this seems too much, but this is one of the best and still reflects most of the current thinking on which families to recognize.
“Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology Since Darwin,” by Tim Birkhead, et al. (2014): An engaging review of key developments in the history of ornithology and the people who made them. Includes several chapters devoted to taxonomy/systematics iirc, and pretty much the whole book concerns the evolution of birds.
“The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and Us,” by Richard O. Prum (2017). Fascinating and award-winning advocacy piece for the author’s views on this topic. He is an ornithologist, so most of the book focuses on the evolution of beauty in birds. Not relevant to taxonomy, but it's a cool book, so I had to give it a plug!
WEBSITES:
Bird Families of the World by Don Roberson (
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/list.html): an amateur enthusiast's collection of information on the topic as well as his own views.
The third paragraph of the home page has links to several of the other key avian taxonomy websites, including John Boyd’s Taxonomy in Flux (another amateur enthusiast), as well as links to websites for the principal species-level taxonomies, IOC, Clements/EBird, and HBW.
Hope this helps!
Jim
