[SNOWBALL138]

I would start out by reading Getting started in hold em by Ed Miller. It provides a strong winning foundation for beating small stakes limit hold em. Its also a really quick read so you can put all of the ideas into practice right away.

After that, Small Stakes Hold Em is a must. There are other good hold em books, but before you read these two, there's not much use in reading anything else.

You might also want to try getting some practice by playing online. It makes it easier to learn poker to play online, because you can post hands on the forum, and you can use pokertracker. Also, the rake is a lot lot less.