For a great non-technical book with a historical flavor, I remember reading "The Devil Take the Hindmost" by Edward Chancellor. It has been a while since I read it, but it covers the history of investing over the past 400 (+/-) years. You can gain a ton of practical investing knowledge from it while enjoying the read.
On the introductory technical side of things, I enjoyed "Fundamentals of Contemporary Financial Management" by Moyer, which you can pick up on amazon for a penny. This introduced and covered the (simple) mathematics behind the core principles of finance (in a text book format).
Just my 0.02, hope it helps