Hey James, when I first started posting here I made the grande faux pas of asking who Simon Roberts, Philip Heller and Michael Ernest were. I think I'm still receiving hate mail over that! Anyway, the point is, they wrote a really good book on Java. I'm not sure if I can post the title here, I have no idea what the "rules" on promoting products are, but
you should be able to find it easily, it's a study guide.
p.s. I also made the mistake of questioning whether the second edition is as good as the first. Apparently it is. I haven't compared the two, I just accepted everyone's opinion (including Mr. Roberts) and purchased it... and since reading it, I've recommended it to everyone that asks.