Practical Programming for Total Beginners - Automate the Boring Stuff with Python

It's an unfortunate title for a book that contains so much cool Python info. The first part is a well-organized quickie course in Python. Even experienced users may find some goodies there. Then the author takes a very interesting tour through dozens of applications that cover much more than the title implies. In addition to automating tasks like moving, copying, and cleaning up your directories, he shows how you can use Python to make .pdf and Word files, interact with Excel files, scrape the Web for data and images, send and manipulate emails, do some GUI automation, and schedule jobs. The code examples illustrate many cool features of Python and are useful far beyond the specific applications shown. Highly recommended!

Excellent reference with lots of exercises and examples.

Unlike many other programming books he actually gives you the code for some small, working programs.
It's not exactly a cookbook, but definitely a good resource without being too technical or too superficial.

This book quickly helps you get going with projects that are interesting and fun. The author provides this book free of charge on his website and has an accompanying video series on YouTube. I bought this book because I prefer paper, and because I think the author has produced quality work.

Bought this after hearing Al interviewed on the awesome podcast http://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/19/automate-the-boring-stuff-with-python - skimming over the book looks great. Love al's other books. Great selection of mini projects and while I consider myself a decent Python programmer, Id recommend this to new programmers because he doesnt dwell a lot on theory and advanced topics and just shows you how to get the job done.

This is a super handy book. I believe that people that have at least a very tiny amount of Python knowledge (like, know what variables and loops are) will benefit from the book. I only say this because their explanation of the basics seemed more like a review, instead of thoroughly teaching it. Aside from that, this book is loaded with awesome ideas.

This book was exactly what I needed. This book successfully navigates the challenge of being basic enough to explain all concepts clearly, but not staying too high level all the time, such that it includes really useful projects.

I personally wanted to get into Python specifically to learn how to interact with Microsoft Office tools, and also how to parse web pages to pull down data. These are topics that are handled well, and in depth with this book... and I've already successfully written a few apps in both of these areas.