unix newbie

[Chatoor Kalki]

hello, i'm new to unix but am interested in learning and getting a decent command over it as quickly as possible.initially i will be running dragonfly bsd within virtualbox under windows 7. 
can i get help with references to books?i purchased 'the unix programming environment' but am unable to get a grasp over unix as effortlessly as i'd expected.is there some other book/s i could refer to?
 thank you.