edit: a great first step would be to watch the meditative film: Baraka!!
To be honest, I would not recommend starting with a book. It'd be hard to go into meditation that way. I don't meditate daily, so what do I know? But I do know that the few times I've gotten to that place where I said "oh wow I love meditating!" were guided meditations led by someone who's good at guiding.
Basically for beginners, it's nice to close your eyes and let a guide take you through a series of thoughts/visualizations/concepts/sounds that end in a breathing- or mantra-focused meditation.
The goal in meditation is the ceasing of thought, which is probably why thinking too much and reading thus may not help. Tho it depends.
Search youtube for some good guided meditation and approaches and see if any work for you.
I often return to the best guided approaches in my own mind when I do try to meditate...
final edit: If you are by any chance near Berkeley, I strongly recommend checking out (any week is good) the Meditation, Mysticism, and the Mind decal (grad-student-led course) at UC Berkeley. They bring in a wonderful speaker each week from a different world tradition and mix lecture with guided meditation.
To be honest, I would not recommend starting with a book. It'd be hard to go into meditation that way. I don't meditate daily, so what do I know? But I do know that the few times I've gotten to that place where I said "oh wow I love meditating!" were guided meditations led by someone who's good at guiding.
Basically for beginners, it's nice to close your eyes and let a guide take you through a series of thoughts/visualizations/concepts/sounds that end in a breathing- or mantra-focused meditation.
The goal in meditation is the ceasing of thought, which is probably why thinking too much and reading thus may not help. Tho it depends.
Search youtube for some good guided meditation and approaches and see if any work for you.
I often return to the best guided approaches in my own mind when I do try to meditate...
final edit: If you are by any chance near Berkeley, I strongly recommend checking out (any week is good) the Meditation, Mysticism, and the Mind decal (grad-student-led course) at UC Berkeley. They bring in a wonderful speaker each week from a different world tradition and mix lecture with guided meditation.