There are 5 books so far (5th being published July 12) and there will be 7 by the time the book series finishes. The Book series is called 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Book 2 is called 'A Clash of Kings'. In the first book there's one on the page battle and one sort of off the page. You need to appreciate that series 1 was a financial risk so they had to keep the budget reasonably modest, and that meant no big battle scenes. Series 2 should be a bit more free with the budget and there is an awesome battle in the book, which if done well on screen will be brilliant.

The chapter structure in the books is taken from the point of view of individual characters: Ned, Sansa, Arya, Catelyn, Jon, Danaerys, Tyrion. So they are the only people who's inner thoughts you read about, and only the things they see and do are experienced first hand. Other events are spoken of or relayed 2nd or 3rd hand. So for instance in the TV series yoou see a couple of scenes between Varys and Littlefinger, those scenes never happen in the book. Same as a scene between Cersei and Robert. The TV series stuck reasonably close to the order of events in the books, but a few things happened slightly out of sequence.