A first course in abstract algebra Book

This is possibly one of the most elegant books on mathematics I have ever read. It really motivates the many of the definitions rather then just throwing them at you which many other authors do (like Lang, but that's not really an introductory book anyways). The best part of this book is the range of difficulty in exercises. Not only is this book good for learning algebra, it is good for learning the art of doing mathematics. The only one criticism I have on the book is its glossed hand-waving treatment for homological algebra (which the author could very well have just left out completely) which gives a slightly misleading idea on what homological algebra is about. But the author makes up for this by stating that it really isn't an essential part of the book. In my opinion, homological algebra is too sophisticated of a subject to treat in a textbook like this.