Depends on what the goal is. Considering who's asking I'd assume the other commenters options would seem more attractive but I'd honestly never discount a good

Depends on what the goal is. Considering who's asking I'd assume the other commenters options would seem more attractive but I'd honestly never discount a good old "For Dummies" book. Seriously! I was about 17 when I deciding to move from online tutorials to books and I found that I really couldn't appreciate the O'Reilly books or any of the other suggestions you'd expect from this crowd until after I got through a couple of "For Dummies" books. "PHP for Dummies" was my favorite of the ones I read. I'm sure I'll be laughed at for suggesting it but they're really amazing at explaining things in layman's terms, there's usually some project that's useful that you build throughout it, and you actually retain the information when you're done. I know they don't teach you the latest greatest but as a beginner you don't need that stuff anyway and the fundamentals are what it's really about. "For Dummies" books are underrated. They're not cool but they work.