I have to second some of the earlier comments -- Learning Perl and Learning Perl Objects, References & Modules are excellent.

I've found Elements of Programming with Perl by Andrew Johnson the single most helpful volume I own.

The really nice thing about Perl is this: with only a basic knowledge, you can create solutions to very difficult problems. When you get that solution down, you've learned something. As you learn more, go back and revise your first solution to make it more efficient, more elegant.

What kind of problems can you tackle? Think of how you use your PC, and some small tasks you'd like to automate. Maybe reading some log files and generating summaries, creating a backup utility, reporting on old or large files. Maybe you want to send yourself an e-mail reminder of an important date.

I started using Perl at work to extract data out of very large log files and create simple reports. As I learned more about what I could do, more projects came to mind. Get that first project finished and the ideas will start bubbling up. And you'll be learning Perl.