I am currently reading the book  "Special Edition Using Java" by Alexander Newman, et al. Executive Director, Sun User Group.  The et al means "and the rest".
The book is published by Que Corporation.

I recomend this book to EVERYONE.

I have read two Chapters so far and learned lots.

The first Chapter is all about Java and it's history.  Very interesting.
The second Chapter is used in conjuction with the Java Developers Kit.  You even get to write an applet and an application.
It is all very exciting.

I have used the knowledge already gained (and a lot of trial and error) to make a simple applet

To see what I have learned click here