I think the " for dummies " series is pretty good and ebay has some great prices for these books. A very good book is one called XHTML, CSS and javascript for dummies.
This is in my opinion the best online source for learning most languages
http://www.w3schools.com/default.asp
But yeah, for a novice and even intermediate coder, the for dummies series is actually very good. I have several of them and i have been to university for programming and going back next year for my degree in computer science. They are also very handy to keep around as a refresher when needed.
AMD Dual Core 2.6GHZ BE
4GB Mushkin DDR2 800
Vista Ultimate 64 Bit