I would suggest you to go for online tutorials. w3cschool is one of the best to learn different languages and tools including PHP for beginners.
As almedajohnson, I suggest that you go for online tutorials also. You might get a lot from reading books, but to really get it you need to practice with trial by error. Try build up simple things from scratch with a tutorial and learn it the hard way. It will give you much understanding of the semantics. Reading a book for the basic outlines of PHP programming is not bad to do though, I recommend both to get the understanding you need.
If you guys recommend w3school, then php.net is just as great. Many of the comments is really invaluable, and will help you a long way to study.
instead of reading books, check out the video tutorials on developphp.com, i learned a lot from the owner, adam