My situation was a little different as I got serious about programming when I was 23, a year ago. The first real book I read was SICP (I had done learn python the hard way by Zed Shaw right before that, but it's more a set of exercises than a book); a friend who I met through HN strongly recommended it. It was awesome and I loved it.
EDIT: It's free online: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/