Although I have some background with programming (Basic, Pascal, COBAL) and desktop db business applications, I had been somewhat intimidated by the idea of server-side programming.
I can only tell you that I did in fact take this book one chapter at a time, sometimes re-reading some sections several times, and marking-up certain parts with a hi-liter and a red pen. I followed the tutorials, downloaded the scripts from the book's associated website, and even got help directly from the author at his website's forum.
Don't misunderstand me, that I marked-up the book, did homework, and asked questions was a reflection of how the book did engage me - AND TAUGHT ME. The book is well written, methodical, detailed, and its intended audience seemed to be someone with my background (pretty fluent in HTML, handy with CSS, has a basic understanding of databases and programming concepts, and who enjoys the learning process under a good professor).
This book will get you started and on your way - correctly. It was the perfect launch site for me (once you get through this book you will be in a good position to evaluate what you need to learn next). As for me, this book (alone) taught me to write programs/scripts to login users, develop MySQL databases, write database reports, do user input forms and process them at the back-end updating the database tables, sessions, cookies, etc. etc.
Select this book. Your php output will be, primarily, html markup. So if you don't know HTML - spend some time with that first -- along with CSS (I recommend CSS The Missing Manual by David S. McFarland).