Palmer's "How to Brew". There's the Brewing Elements installment called "Malt" but that's spectacularly unhelpful. Malt has enough protein in it to give beer a head, so if head retention is a problem, I wouldn't start with malt. I'd start with cleanliness: Oils or soaps are amazingly efficient head destroyers. If you're washing your glasses in the dishwasher and using a rinse aid, you're coating your glasses with surfactants - soap-like compounds that both cause the water to sheet off the glasses and destroy beer head with their residue. If you're still having problems, make sure you're not doing a protein rest. Most modern malts do not need it. Then, and only then, look to your grist. Head-encouraging malts are wheat malt and dextrine malts.
