This is a brilliant book, it gives you loads of information about how the language works, how to install it and how you could use all of its features.
It is very well written and includes loads of coding exercises and examples.
Please note however that you will not be doing much programing untill about half way through, the first half is almost all introduction. That being said, it is so well written you dont really notice it, and if you are used to other languages, you can probably skip some of the more indepth descriptions.