you sure know several books on programming, what they all have in common? what is important, relevant, and what is syntax sugar? abstraction, data, and procedural abstraction.
of course, depending on the type of programming book you happen to read, you may find the abstraction concept closer to the surface. this is the case in many cs 101 kind of books, say SICP, HtDP, or similar. OTOH, if you are stuck with a 'foo language for dummies', or 'foo in 21 days', then you might just be out of luck: abstraction will be there, believe me, but you're gonna have to work harder to find it.
this is really important, once you grasp the basic concepts, and abstractions it is easier to move to higher topics, to other languages. the two books i mentioned before are scheme based, which really eases the translation from concepts to code: first class procedures (or higher order procedures), strong dynamic typing, the whole nine yards. i haven't look myself at any java, c# o c++ intro book lately, but it must be a hell of a lot harder to do without first class procedures, no wonder novice programmers lose themselves in the syntax nightmare.
