At least, what I think...
- Get a solid grounding in HTML. Plain old HTML. Whatever the most recent version is. General stuff - basic HTML, tables. Learn enough CSS that you can cut+paste it, if not write it yourself. Check out www.w3c.org - they spec'ed it, they have great reference stuff for it. A development tool like Dreamweaver can be useful, because you can always get your feet wet in the HTML, while still getting to see what it looks like, and playing around with a GUI. Frontpage is more widely available, but it's also less easy to see the code in Frontpage, so I prefer Dreamweaver.
- Learn a server-side scripting language. PHP is my favorite, but PERL is also a good choice. Make sure you understand how to use a database with your scripting language of choice, because most of what you'll be writing will be database code - forums, login code, ad servers, news, lookup stuff... it's all best done with databases.
- Finally, you can learn JavaScript, DHTML, Flash all that. It's candy, and it doesn't always work, certainly not always well, and older/less complex browsers (lynx, for instance) won't use it at all. Remember the golden rule of web site development: Make it work for the lowest common denominator.
Useful books:
- The Web. It's not a book, I know, but it has some really good resources, especially for reference. www.php.net has a complete reference to the PHP language on the site, just as good as any book, and www.w3c.org has the same for HTML, complete with all the most recent updates.
- Anything by O'Reilly. They have good books. that's all there is to it. Read a review or two, first!