Screw the Prima books, the wiki knows all.
http://wiki.project1999.com/Players:..._killing_me.3F For starters. Skim over the thing, it gives you the basics of survival.
http://wiki.project1999.com/Loraen%2...election_Guide This goes over classes and duos fairly well. I disagree with a few points, but overall it's a good way to compare classes.
As far as entertaining duos, you could be right in ENC/CLR being dull. The cleric just does cleric things, typically keeping a superbuff Charmed thing alive...or the chanter when said thing decides it no longer likes you. Charming itself for the chanter is fun if you don't mind paying attention to what's going on.
Seeing as you're set on chanter, anything that can snare is a good pair. Chanters get a fixed duration fear, so the reverse kite is strong when you have someone to slow it down.
Honestly, play the duo you think you'll have fun with. If you're just looking for an easy time, well then ENC/pretty much anything. If you want a viable duo, take at least one class that can solo (Necro, enchanter, druid, shaman, bard, mage...maybe wizard).
Important "/" commands: /hidecorpse - You have a few options to modify what it ends up hiding, and it'll list them for you.
/corpse - Target the corpse you want to drag, and mash this button to pull it along with you.
/consent playername - Gives consent for playername to drag your corpse.
/who - This will give you a list of people in the zone. You can add partial names, guild names, class, or level to the end ("/who druid 21" will give you the druids in zone that are level 21)
/who all - With no modifiers, it'll give you a list of "all" the people online. Not actually all, it stops after a fairly moderate point. Otherwise works like /who, except that you can also use zone names to search specific areas for players. People that are /anon will not show up on who all.
Assist macro: If you remember how to make macros, awesome. If not I can explain that in another post.
My assist macro looks like this:
/tar playername
/pause 1
/assist
Works fine for me, just exchange playername for your main tank/assist.
That's everything I have off the top of my head, but don't be afraid to toss a few more follow-up questions in.