[cauterized]

It's not called the bible for nothing.

Anecdotally:

Going into college, my only coding experience was in HTML and a month of fiddling with BASIC ten years earlier.

I picked this (required reading) up a month ahead of my first CS class and read the first few chapters on my own. Even though I didn't have a computer to compile on, it gave me a huge advantage going in compared to others who had never programmed before. (Though not nearly as much as those who had taken classes in high school.)

Edited to add:

It will give you a good introduction to the language, but to an older standard. I haven't written C since college. My possibly wildly incorrect understanding is that code written to this standard will compile and run as intended on more modern compilers and systems, but the book won't introduce you to more modern features and conventions.