Would anyone have any recommendations on material for learning Rust? Is The Rust Programming Language still the best way to start?

The best way to start is probably Rust By Example https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/rust-by-example/ and/or Rustlings https://github.com/rust-lang/rustlings/ . The key is to do those exercises "the hard way" and get some familiarity with the mechanics of coding in Rust. Once you've done that, reading TRPL will make a lot more sense.