It may sound strange, but I usually recommend programming perl as Perl first book
for people who already has some programming experience.

Even if at first sight it looks more like a reference book than a learning book,
there's all you need to learn plus some neccessary things to really understand Perl.
Furthermore some people (I'm one of them) really like 'dense' books with a lot of informations
even if it makes it (a little bit) harder to read...

Don't be scare by its reputation, the 'Perl Bible' may be the best start for you...

"Only Bad Coders Code Badly In Perl" (OBC2BIP)