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The Core books are very good, don''t get me wrong here, but I don''t know of they are for beginners. If you are a beginner to programming, get something like Thinking in Java. But if already have learned some other language, then the Core books are great. I bought Core 2 and constantly use it for examples.

You can''t go wrong with Thinking in Java. Download it here.

I found the best book to start with is The Java Tutorial. You can buy it in print form, or you can download it direct from Sun''s Java website here or read it online here

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Make it work.
Make it fast.