Sams Teach Yourself Cobol in 24 Hours by Thane Hubbel (1998, Illustrated, Package)

I know COBOL is a dying programming language (and has been dying for many years). But if you don't know COBOL and you need to learn it, this an excellent book. I have been programming in COBOL for about 10 years and this is the book that taught me COBOL. Even after 10 years I still use this book when I need to reference a function I haven't used in a while.

The book is divided into 24 one-hour lessons (hence the title). A few of the lessons take more than an hour to fully understand the material and a few take less than an hour. I just finished a different SAMS Teach Yourself in 24 Hour book, and it wasn't nearly as good as the COBOL book.