I'm beginning to learn C with the book "Beginning C" by Ivor Horton. The experience so far is quite good. The author explains things in detail for each of the programs used as an example in the text. The most interesting of it is that the books provides a lot of real programs - quite complicated stuffs - at the end of every chapter. For instance, when introducing arrays he exemplified this concept by writing a tic -tac-toe game, or for loops he introduced the Simple Simon game. Quite simple but real stuffs...
The only drawback is that while the book seems quite easygoing as I read (concepts, etc...) the exercises seem rather hard. When I read I find things clear, but when it comes to exercises I find it hard... Perhaps I don't understand the book thoroughly enough...?
Anyway, this is a good book I want to recommend. I assumes no previous knowledge or experience with programming.