The free book "Introducing the Spartan 3E FPGA and VHDL" by Mike Field is a great introduction to FPGA programming, and very hands-on and readable, reminds an O

The free book "Introducing the Spartan 3E FPGA and VHDL" by Mike Field is a great introduction to FPGA programming, and very hands-on and readable, reminds an O'Reilly of hardware. Its scope is not limited to Spartan 3Es, much is appliable to other Xilinx families/devices. The examples are thought for a choice of two boards, one being the Papilio with a daughter boards ("wing"). The only glitch is that while the book teaches ISE, Xilinx seems to think of Vivado as the toolchain with future.