Trying to learn to cast on from a book = difficult.
Learning from copying a video = much easier! (plus it creates the first knit row, so you purl the next one). At least, I think I've just cast on 20 stitches. It looks like it. We'll find out if it worked when I go to work the next row ;) It got fun after a while because it was so repetitive. Under, over, through, tighten. Under, over, through, tighten.
Of course now I need to re-learn to purl before re-learning to knit (or do this in garter stitch--just a practice piece so it doesn't matter).