What is the best book out there to learn programming. I'm interested simple game programming, but what's best?

Answer 1

You might want to pick a direction first.

If you are interested in just programming a game (1 person, one machine, the game is the important thing) then a good place to start would be something like DarkBasic which is designed to teach that. It can show you whether or not you can be good at it. Then you can move off it later to something more involved.

If you are interested in online webbased games then Java Script would be a good direction to head in

If you are interested in working for some big game company where many people program on the same game, the C would be the language to learn altho it can be a rough place to start out in.

Answer 2

i'm not sure if books are good for that - the web has so much information, loads of tutorials and communities. look here:

Game Programming for Beginners
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/start_here/

Here are books:
http://www.gamedev.net/columns/books/books.asp?CategoryID=21

Also have a look at the gamedev.net forums.