What is a good book for learning PHP and MySQL?

I’d start here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/

Get a feel for PHP, then buy books to fill in the gaps or get deeper into particular areas.

Books are crap, use the internet.

The PHP manual is great, and you can probably get that in book form.

I quite like the website tizag.com – I would not suggest reading the php.net manual. Just too much information all at once.

The PHP.net manual is information overload. It’s largely designed for experienced developers to hit the ground running with features of the language they’re either vaguely familiar with or have never heard of.

I’ve read PHP and MySQL Web Development, published by Addison-Wesley, part of their Developer’s Library books, and it was pretty good (I had a decent understanding of the language before I read the book, mind you). I used that book to help teach a friend PHP and he has become very competent with the language, despite being a non-programmer before hand.

Unfortunately books are nowhere near the end-all solution to learning a programming language, you have to use it in the wild, so try lots of online tutorials and find some examples of things you could use to test your skills (build a shopping card, blog, etc).