I've recently used two books, not mentioned in the FAQ. I would
recommend these only to a subset of newbies, depending on their background:

Roland B. Stull: "Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers: A Technical
Companion Book to C. Donald Ahrens' Meteorology Today"
Personally I find this a tad too much "American textbook style" but the
engineers I work with, like it.

Environment Canada: "AWARE The atmosphere, the weather and flying"
This is also available as a website, and both in French and English !
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/education/aware/index_e.cfm