Although some people's opinions disagree with mine on this, I would recommend "The Motley Fool" trilogy to get you started in the financial world.
There are 3 books in the series, and it explains in a no-nonsense, easy to understand, and even entertaining way the ins and outs of the business. People that have followed their advice on investing have usually done fairly well, at least the several people that I know.
The three books are, in the order that you should read them...
1) Motley Fool's You Have more than you think: The Foolish Guide to Personal Finance
2)The Motley Fool Investment Guide: How the Fool Beats Wall Street's Wise Men and How you can too
3)The Motley Fool's Rule Breakers, Rule Makers: the Foolish Guide to Picking Stocks
Silly names, indeed, but very, very informative. You can pick them up on
Half.com (a subsidary of ebay) for probably less than $10 for all three of em.
Basically, the first book goes over personal finance, the second is a broad overview of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and options, and the third is a more advanced, in depth study of the stock market. I highly recommend them, as they contain a lot of good info and are actually semi-entertaining to read, which is very uncommon for financial books.
Enjoy
