Recently, I read Emily Anne Croom's The Genealogist's Companion and Sourcebook 2nd ed. It is full of places to start for beginners. It's also got some interesting references from those who are stuck on a family line.

I also read Croom's Unpuzzling Your Past: A Basic Guide to Genealogy. It's got some great tips for beginners. The forms were created for hard copy (before a lot of the software for managing family trees existed), but the "getting started" information is helpful.