You have to keep your goal in mind. If you're learning a new language, I'd recommend one of those Visual Quickstart guides. Not too much text, and plenty of code examples. Try out what you learn by making a toy text-based game. Little experiments like that help keep the interest going. If you just go by the example and exercises, then all you're doing is going through the motions. That kills enthusiasm any day.

shouldn't read a programming guide like a textbook.

algorithms in general are all the same. if you write a b-tree in java, it'd be the same as writing b-tree in c++ or c. if you're having trouble with the syntax i'd probably recommend something like python.

i mean a novel*

Not the best language and not the best theme but a good idea
http://railsforzombies.org/

http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/
http://learnyouahaskell.com

My personal favorites. Ruby is a great language to learn starting out, plus there's Rails once you get into it a bit. Haskell is simply 10 kinds of fuckawesome.

when they give you a project to do at the end of a chapter/sector/whatever, try glancing at the psuedocode or the program description and writing it all from scratch with what you learned in the chapter.
also, think of what you want your computer to do for you. for instance, i wanted a platform independent lightweight AES encryptor/decryptor, so i wrote one. it's much easier to work on something if you have a clear idea beforehand of what exactly it should do.
stick with it, it gets better

I remember reading something a while back that said that programming is the last and least interesting part of the software process. The most interesting part being planning and reasoning the project out. I know that's true for me. I'm not one of those guys that can sit down and just explore with code. I like to know where I'm going. I think it gives a sense of security or confidence.