Best book for a newbie?

Greetings:

I need a recommendation on a good/great book that can teach me to be very proficient/comfortable at web design. My current level of knowledge is next to nothing.

For example, when loading one of my pages to check for validation, one of the errors listed explains:

"The attribute given above is required for an element that you've used, but you have omitted it. For instance, in most HTML and XHTML document types the "type" attribute is required on the "script" element and the "alt" attribute is required for the "img" element.

Typical values for type are type="text/css" for and type="text/javascript" for <script>."

This may as well be in Greek. I realize there may not be one book that can take me from newbie to expert, but need one that can get me started along the road - beginning with understanding what the above message means.

I appreciate any suggested reading.