"I am only interested in general purpose work, utilities"
They (all reasonably mainstream languages) are all fine for this. You can even get the free version of visual studio and do C# / VB.Net and by learning the libraries of one pretty much know everything you need for the other. C# is a lot like Java and flicking from one to the other is easy as is stepping down to C++ or over to Javascript. I'd say Java / C#. Both free, both compliment the other and MSDN is huge, seriously HUGE in depth and breadth. C# will also lead into powershell which may be better suited to what you want to do potentially.
I'm not saying it's how things should be. I'm just telling you it's how they are.
The best book on programming for the layman is "Alice in Wonderland"; but that's because it's the best book on anything for the layman.