Learning Perl (3rd Edition) Randal L. Schwartz, et al

This book made history. If you are new at Perl, and want to get a serious grip of the language,this should be your first book to buy. The programming lessons and the examples have been updated, to support the latest in Perl, up to the version 5. It is fun to read, and makes a great starter reference manual. Following the link, you will find a lot of good reviews

Programming Perl (3rd Edition) by Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Randal L. Schwartz, Stephen Potter

So, you are done with the first book, and want to go for a most in-depth experience? This is the absolute bible of Perl, offering a step-by step approach to the language, with great real-life examples and funny remarks :) . It includes an extensive Perl language reference and a rich glossary.

Advanced Perl Programming (Nutshell Handbook) by Sriram Srinivasan

Once you have aquired some Perl skills, this book will bring you into the power-programming. There are multiple examples of manipulating data, access databases, embed Perl within other programming languages. It also offers some insight into Object Oriented Perl, graphical interfaces with TK, selected internals. The author is a whiz, although the typical fun and Perl puns are missing. Nevertheless, this book is a “must buy”.

Perl Cookbook
by Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington, Larry Wall

Maybe the most important moment your Perl programming career, is the day when you realize that you can cut-and-paste your way into programming. This is the resource for that. This book offers very competent advice, along with real-life script-bits and a lot of fun.

In Extropia, one of the most important things is the move towards a object-oriented codebase. Before reading this book, I considered OOP as too “stuffy” and unnecessarily complicate, and was rather proud of my “cut-and-paste”... Then, in an email, Gunther pitched me the book, as a “must buy”. After reading the first chapter, I was in love with OOP. If there can be one book to show you what OOP is all about, this is it.

So you thought that Perl is only for processing online forms and page counters? This book will teach you different. It offers a look into fuzzy pattern matching, high-powered number-crunching applications, game-playing algorithms, fractal generation... definitely worth the money!