actually, even if you're not familiar with programming in general or with object oriented concepts, Python is a great language to learn them with. i'm picking up
Java much better for having learned Python first, i think.
texts you might be interested in include
How to Think like a Computer Scientist and maybe
Dive into Python. (check the additional links in the sidebar of that latter page, they're good.) also, of course, the entire
Python documentation collection, including especially the
tutorial.