Fiction Books

For the show, the beginning of the 2005 revival is probably a good place to start! The first couple of seasons are probably a bit dated now but still good, and they treat it as kind of a soft reboot because it had had been off the air for ~15 years at that point so it's designed for new viewers to drop in without having to know all the backstory and stuff.

As for the books I have no idea lol. There are quite a lot of those IIRC.

Replying to a 19-day-old comment is totally the thing to do, right? /s

Anyway, I always tell people, when they express an interest in Doctor Who, to watch the episode 'Blink'. It's a litmus test: if you don't like the episode, you won't like Doctor Who; if you do like it, you will enjoy Doctor Who at least a little.

Another commenter mentioned the soft reboot of the show, 'Blink' is an episode that comes after the soft reboot, so it is more accessible than older Doctor Who episodes (although I personally love Pertwee episodes, but that's a whole comment thread in itself). Blink introduces a new character and a new bad guy, so the viewer is introduced to both the Doctor and the bad guy just as the new character is. The Doctor himself isn't on screen much either; most of the story focuses on this new character. She has to solve something of a mystery while staying ahead of a bad guy that she doesn't even realize exists (so there is some suspense, too).

Like I said, if you bounce off this episode, you won't much like any other episodes. It's a really handy way of seeing if Doctor Who is right for you.