Reading

May not be the best introduction to Java (and programming, in general), but the end-of-chapter exercises were useful. I say that as someone who hadn't programmed in almost ten years and only did so back then when it was necessary for physics work.

I've used two Head First books for learning now and enjoyed reading them thoroughly. Highly recommended. The excessive number of attempts at programming humor can leave you sighing sometimes, but it beats a dry, text-laden reference any day.

The second Head First book I consumed, it was quite an easy read after having spent a fair bit of time on Stack Overflow getting tips and commenting on others' questions regarding Android development. A useful book, but once you've gotten some application development experience, you can probably just pick and choose the chapters that would benefit you most; reading straight through could see you revisiting a fair bit of old territory.

Still working on this one, but finding it quite easy to digest. Will update as soon as I finish...