Matlab: A Practical IntroductionThis book unusually does more than it says on the cover. It's not just an introduction to programming in Matlab, but is in fact a superb all round introduction to Matlab. I had virtually no experience of Matlab before I started this book (although I have some experience in programming), and by the end I felt I had enough expertise to be able to work my way around.
The book covers the basics of the Matlab interface and the Matlab language, as well as an introduction to programming scripts and functions. The book also covers input and output - reading and writing to external files, as well as processing sounds and images, particularly plotting graphs. There are a large number of very useful examples from maths and statistics. There's a nice sense of progression too, from easier to more difficult and complicated examples. The book also teaches the elements of good programming style and practice.
To get the most out of it you should work through the numerous examples and problems.
Very highly recommended; if anyone knows of a better introduction to Matlab at such a reasonable price, I'd like to know about it.