Today, due to someone promoting (or spamming) his Perl related blog in the Usenet group comp.lang.perl.misc I discovered a bit late that Learning Perl, the 4th edition has been released. According to the O'Reilly website the release date was July 2005, and somehow I missed this.
Although I don't own any version of Learning Perl myself, I do recommend this book a lot. I have been browsing through it several time, and even gave my brother, Marco, an edition for his birthday some time ago.
The book is often referred to as "the llama" because of the illustration on the cover.
Ages ago, when I started to learn Perl, instead of Learning Perl I bought Programming Perl ("the camel"), back then using the color purple instead of the now more familiar blue. But Programming Perl is more a reference work, especially the more recent third edition, and certainly not a book for beginners.
So if you want to start learning Perl, make sure you buy the Llama. Moreover, check that you are buying the fourth edition. Another book I recommend a lot is the Perl Cookbook. This book is an excellent companion to both Learning Perl and Programming Perl.