another newbie asking newbie questions

from what i've read so far, it's one of these four:
redhat, suse, mandrake, or slackware
since i won't be able to have two computers, i'm thinking of setting up a dual boot, win2k and linux
if i am to pick a distro of the four, which book shall i get? (please mind that i haven't even seen linux before and the book must teach me how to install dual boot step by step) i've read somewhere that "slackware linux unreleased" is perfect for (guess what) slackware. true?
i'd appreciate if you give pros and cons for each of the four distros for a beginner and some advices from experiences
thanks in advance, bye

Dual Boot Instructions:
http://www.lfay.net/dualboot.html

Enjoy.

I really like Mandrake for the beginner. I think it is incredibly easy to install, and the bloat isn't that bad for a novice user.

"If you teach a child to read, then he or her will be able to pass a literacy test" - George W.

thanks guys, now i can narrow them down to:
mandrake or suse (probably mandrake)

how the book? i don't want a book that talks about redhat or something else. someone suggested running linux 3rd edition o'reily, but is that updated enough? does it talk about suse or mandrake or it doesn't matter?

SuSE comes with 3 Books I think. But obviously they'll be only about SuSE linux. Though some of the stuff will have commonality with other distros. These will help you get up and running to use Linux for general stuff, but don't expect them to turn you into any sort of administrator. I suppose this is a good thing for people totally fresh to linux and that want to take things a step at a time.

My very first experience was kinda like, this is how you log in. This is how you build a kernel. Too bad, both of the kernels I tried building for SuSE didn't work.

<font color=red><b>A man is only as old as the woman he feels</b></font color=red>

odd couple? you mean they work like oscar and what's-his-name or odd as in not a good mix?