Reference request for Geometric Group Theory

A great newer text is Office Hours With a Geometric Group Theorist.

Check out these notes: http://www.math.utah.edu/~sg/Papers/banff.pdf

When I began studying geometric group theory, the class texts were Bridson and Haflinger's "Metric Spaces of Nonpositive Curvature," Pierre de la Harpe's "Sur les groupes hyperboliques d'après Mikhael Gromov" (in French). I found that Ratcliffe's "Foundations of Hyperbolic Manifolds" and Larry C. Grove's "Classical Groups and Geometric Algebra" help as far as getting used to seeing more elementary examples and results about groups and geometry. Also, Thurston's "Geometry and Topology of Three-Manifolds," although Ratcliffe covers most of the same material in what, I feel, can be a more accessible text.