You're right, this is often brought up.

But trust me, this book is one I'm very glad to have read. More importantly, glad to have read first. It's a list of no-nonsense principals which teach you the basics in an easy-to-understand manner. I really can't recommend this highly enough, cover or no.

Note that the book I linked to is the wrong one. One of the comments has the correct book.

Also note, this book doesn't talk about color, but only the other basics.