Personally I think it really depends on what you want to do with HTML, obviously web site design... I used HTML for dummies when I First started out, I used that and I started a small page on angelfire that really had nothing to do with anything and they had the page builder option, after using that you learn the different HTML codes and what they do. Basically how I learned was through a bunch of experimentation. But HTML for dummies was one of the books I used and it definately got me on my way.