A number of books on Perl and/or CGI programming are available. A few of these are good, some are OK, but many aren't worth your money. Tom Christiansen maintains a list of these books, some with extensive reviews, at http://www.perl.com/perl/critiques/index.html .
The incontestably definitive reference book on Perl, written by the creator of Perl, is now (July 2000) in its third edition:
Programming Perl (the "Camel Book"):
by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant
0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
(English, translations to several languages are also available)The companion volume to the Camel containing thousands
of real-world examples, mini-tutorials, and complete programs is:
The Perl Cookbook (the "Ram Book"): by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington, with Foreword by Larry Wall ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st Edition August 1998] http://perl.oreilly.com/cookbook/If you're already a seasoned programmer, then the Camel Book might suffice for you to learn Perl from. If you're not, check out the Llama book:
Learning Perl (the "Llama Book") by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/If you're not an accidental programmer, but a more serious and possibly even degreed computer scientist who doesn't need as much hand-holding as we try to provide in the Llama, please check out the delightful book
Perl: The Programmer's Companion
by Nigel Chapman
ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)If you are more at home in Windows the following is available
(though unfortunately rather dated).
Learning Perl on Win32 Systems (the "Gecko Book") by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen, with foreword by Larry Wall ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/Addison-Wesley ( http://www.awlonline.com/ ) and Manning ( http://www.manning.com/ ) are also publishers of some fine Perl books such as Object Oriented Programming with Perl by Damian Conway and Network Programming with Perl by Lincoln Stein.
An excellent technical book discounter is Bookpool at http://www.bookpool.com/ where a 30% discount or more is not unusual.
What follows is a list of the books that the FAQ authors found personally useful. Your mileage may (but, we hope, probably won't) vary.
Recommended books on (or mostly on) Perl follow. References
Programming Perl by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant ISBN 0-596-00027-8 [3rd edition July 2000] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/
Perl 5 Pocket Reference
by Johan Vromans
ISBN 0-596-00032-4 [3rd edition May 2000]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlpr3/ Perl in a Nutshell
by Ellen Siever, Stephan Spainhour, and Nathan Patwardhan
ISBN 1-56592-286-7 [1st edition December 1998]
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/perlnut/
Tutorials
Elements of Programming with Perl by Andrew L. Johnson ISBN 1-884777-80-5 [1st edition October 1999] http://www.manning.com/Johnson/
Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix ISBN 0-596-00132-0 [3rd edition July 2001] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/
Learning Perl on Win32 Systems by Randal L. Schwartz, Erik Olson, and Tom Christiansen, with foreword by Larry Wall ISBN 1-56592-324-3 [1st edition August 1997] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperlwin/
Perl: The Programmer's Companion
by Nigel Chapman
ISBN 0-471-97563-X [1997, 3rd printing Spring 1998]
http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/catalog/97563-X.htm
http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/chapman/perl/perltpc.html (errata etc)Cross-Platform Perl by Eric Foster-Johnson ISBN 1-55851-483-X [2nd edition September 2000] http://www.pconline.com/~erc/perlbook.htm
MacPerl: Power and Ease by Vicki Brown and Chris Nandor, with foreword by Matthias Neeracher ISBN 1-881957-32-2 [1st edition May 1998] http://www.macperl.com/ptf_book/
Task-Oriented
The Perl Cookbook by Tom Christiansen and Nathan Torkington with foreword by Larry Wall ISBN 1-56592-243-3 [1st edition August 1998] http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/cookbook/
Effective Perl Programming by Joseph Hall ISBN 0-201-41975-0 [1st edition 1998] http://www.awl.com/