I liked Mindfulness in plain english (http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html) and The miracle of mindfulness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_Mindfulness). Both have easy approaches and stick to the basics.

Hey - I've been meditating daily for the last 6 months and had the same issue as you, where getting started was really the hardest part.

Here is what I've done. The first book that really got me thinking was "Happiness: Developing Life's Most Important Skill" from Matthieu Ricards.

I then went on to use an iPhone app developed by a buddhist monk called Headspace http://getsomeheadspace.com - this is guided meditation, where he walks you through 10 minutes every day for 10 days. Absolutely awesome to get started.

I hope this helps you as much as it has myself to get started! :)

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.

I got started with "Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program" (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761159258/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...)

It's a very easy introduction to several kinds of meditation. The CD that comes with it are guided meditations of all the types she talks about in the book.