Best Python Books

Python is an easy, universally useful programming language. It was made by Guido van Rossum in 1991. Python’s object-oriented interface makes it an ideal language for web development. 

Many areas like information science, AI, programming models, etc use Python. Educational institutions, banks, government sectors, e-commerce websites, etc use Python to develop their sites.

Some of the prominent applications are Google, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and many more. This makes Python a beneficial language in order to start a python programming career without trouble. 

There are two significant Python adaptations: Python 2 and Python 3. Both are very unique and have their own special importance in this era of science and technology.

This article lists the 11 best Python books, you can learn Python programming as it has a direct and simple language layout. 

It will help readers and learners from all levels to deepen their knowledge of Python programming and its features. 

Book 1: Python Crash course:

Eric Matthes is the author of the book. It was available worldwide from May 3, 2019.  He has years of experience in coding Python language and is currently a high school teacher in Alaska. 

This book has 544 pages about the basic foundation of Python. It also covers many advanced Python topics which are beneficial for beginners and intermediate learners. 

This is a quick go-through Python guide so that beginners can learn it in a short period of time. This covers topics like classes, lists, variables, loops in the beginning. 

It also gives details about Python tools and libraries like Pygame, Matplotlib, Plotly, and Django. People aged 12 and above can get the skills to develop their own web apps, interactive visualizations, two-dimensional games and so on. 

The readers get hands-on experience in creating applications based on the practical exercises given. Hence, this helps them to learn and evolve as they dive more into the world of Python. 

Rating: 4.7

Pros:

• #1 in Object-Oriented Design
• #1 in Python Programming 
• #2 in Software Design & Engineering on Amazon
• Practical exercises to learn 
• Thorough discussions for every topic 
• Best suited for beginners 
• Well detailed information about old and new Python uses 

Cons:

• This book is not very helpful for advanced Python programmers
• Lacks animated description
• It is slightly expensive

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Book 2: Learning Python: 5th edition

Learning Python became available worldwide on July 16, 2013. Mark Lutz is the author of the book. Lutz holds an MS in computer science from the University Of Wisconsin, USA. He has been learning, coding and testing Python since 1992. 

He is one of the most important figures in making Python the most demanded language in today’s era. He has written this book to help beginners and advanced programmers from different languages to learn Python, keeping their views in mind. 

This book has thoroughly discussed tutorials using Python 2.7 and 3.3 and other new releases. This also covers built-in Python object topics like numbers, lists, and dictionaries. 

Some other relevant details about decorators, descriptors, meta classes, and Unicode processing. Readers can learn about Python’s syntax, ways to avoid code redundancy, and structure codes. They can organize, modify and create statements, functions and tools with modules. 

They will understand the concept of Python through several practical examples in this 1648 page book that enhance their knowledge of this language. 

Rating: 4.5

Pros:

• #1 in Computer Graphics
• #1 in Functional Software Programming
• #1 in Game Programming
• Beginners can easily understand 
• Well written details and examples 
• Creation of apps using Django 
• Elaborates differences between Python versions 

Cons:

• This book is not highly suitable for people who didn’t program before 
• May be too dense for some readers 
• Some readers found it to be mediocre
• Too long and lengthy 

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Book 3: Head first Python:

Head First Python (2nd edition) became available worldwide from December 13, 2016. Paul Barry is the author of the book. He is an MS in computer science and has 25 years of experience in Python programming. 

It has cognitive science and learning theory approaches. This uses a special approach of using pictures and texts in a joint manner. This book has numerous puzzles, brainstorming activities, and several learning methods including examples involving our daily lives. 

This helps the brain to learn quickly and understand concepts in an easy way. Python is a fun language to learn and apply. Hence, this approach helps to sharpen the memory and remember the topics in the long term. 

This book covers Python’s fundamentals, functions and built-in data structures. It guides the readers to manage databases, data wrangling and so forth. It covers topics like MySQL, Homebrew, MariaDB, Mac Terminal Commands, and so forth. 

The readers get to know and apply some concepts in real-time like context managers, decorators, comprehensions, and generators. This book has 624 pages which uses graphical contexts to explain each and every topic. Beginners learning Python would greatly benefit from this book. 

Rating: 4.5

Pros:

• #12 in Object-Oriented Software Design
• #28 in Object-Oriented Design
• #47 in Python Programming
• Visuals aid greatly in understanding the topics
• Best suited for beginners 
• It is not lengthy 
• Easy examples  
• Easy explanation on SQL Database,  Advanced Data Structures Lists, Dictionaries, Sets, Tuples Before Control and Object-Oriented Programming.

Cons:

• Not suitable for intermediate or advanced programmers
• Some readers felt it as too basic 
• Rushed topics
• It doesn’t cover many advanced topics

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Book 4: Automate the boring stuff with Python Practical Programming for Beginners:

Automate the boring stuff with Python (2nd edition) became available worldwide on November 12, 2019. It has sold over 100,000+ copies to date.  Al Sweigart is the author of the book. He is a Python programmer and has written several best selling books for understanding Python for beginners and advanced learners. 

This 593 pages book teaches Python 3 in an easy manner. This helps first-time coders to program a code easily within a few minutes. It gives details on many topics like scraping data off websites, reading PDF and Word documents, and automating clicking and typing tasks.

Readers will also learn to search websites and download files online, modify and rename files, type entries in excel and so forth. Programmers who are Cloud / AWS architects can benefit a lot from this book as there are many practical examples and to-do activities that help in learning. 

Rating: 4.7

Pros:

• #3 in Software Development (Books)
• #4 in Introductory & Beginning Programming
• #4 in Python Programming
• Easy format to understand
• Beneficial for intermediate learners 
• Data scientists will get help in website data scraping
• Realistic examples

Cons:

• Lack of coding explanation directly
• Few readers felt it’s unorganized for beginners 
• This has outdated links
• This book doesn’t discuss about installation of additional pip program and features

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Book 5: Intro to Python for Computer Science and Data Science Learning to Program with AI, Big Data, and the Cloud

Intro to Python for Computer Science and Data Science Learning… became available worldwide on February 15, 2019. Paul J. Deitel is the author of this book. He has done his graduation from MIT and has 38 years of programming experience in different IT sectors. 

J. Deitel is an Oracle Java Champion and a Microsoft C# MVP (2012-2014). He is the CEO and Chief Technical Officer of Deitel & Associates, Inc. Also, he is one of the best selling authors of all time. 

Dr. Harvey M. Deitel is the co-author of this book. M. Deitel has done his master’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT and PhD in Mathematics from Boston University.  He has over 55 years of experience in programming languages and is currently the Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Deitel & Associates, Inc.  

This book teaches beginners’ level Python language and data science with Jupyter Notebooks supplements. This book covers many AI applications of businesses, educational institutes, government, medical sectors and so forth. 

There are many practical examples and activities that make the learners get hands-on experience.  The readers get to easily know the foundation of Python and data science as this book is on par with ACM/IEEE CS course books. 

Readers will learn about Python fundamentals, different kinds of Python libraries, developing programs with minimal codes, etc. It also discusses different cloud computing practices, machine learning, managing the Watson uses, syntaxes and so on. 

It easily explains Big data concepts. Some of these are Hadoop, Spark and loT. Professors, lecturers and students highly advise this book for these topics.  This book has 880 pages with well-designed graphics which makes it perfectly suitable for beginners and intermediate learners of Python. 

Coders who know other programming languages can also read this book to learn Python and it’s uses. 

Rating: 4.7

Book 5: Pros:

• #2 in Prolog Programming
• #27 in Cloud Computing (Books)
• #32 in Python Programming
• IBM Watson, MNIST experiments, ML classification, clustering, regression, neural nets, can be understood easily. 
• Jupyter notes are helpful to readers
• Beneficial to new learners 
• Difficult maths is not much discussed

Cons:

• Basic explanation of Python and machine learning
• The price is slightly costly
• Lack of answers of all the questions 
• No solution manuals are available
• There are some errors

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Book 6: Fluent Python:

Fluent Python became available worldwide on September 1, 2015. Luciano Ramalho is the author of this book. Ramalho worked as a web developer before teaching Python script to the Brazilian media, government and banking sectors. 

He is the co-founder of Garoa Hacker Clube, the first hackerspace in Brazil. He is co-owner of Python.pro.br.  This book is for coders from other languages. They can easily learn the concepts of Python through this book. 

This focuses more on the special features of Python which is not available in any other languages. Intermediate learners will learn easily from this book. Although its main objective is to teach Python 3.4, learners wanting to upgrade from Python 2 to 3.4 and above can also learn from this book. 

The author has written about hidden features of Python in an easy way so that the learners can learn fast. This 792 pages of book cover topics like learning the Python data model, managing control flow and metaprogramming, creating and maintaining data structures, object-oriented idioms, etc. 

The second edition of fluent Python is expected to be released on January 18, 2022. This covers most of the important features of Python like the behaviour of Python objects, managing sequences, dicts, sets, Unicode, and data classes, how and why functions act as an object, etc. 

Readers will also get to know deep insights on other important topics like object-oriented idioms like composition, inheritance, mixins, interfaces, operator overloading, static typing and protocols as well as dealing with control flow and metaprogramming. 

Rating: 4.6

Pros:

• #26 in Object-Oriented Design
• #45 in Python Programming
• #55 in Software Development (Books)
• It skips the basics which make it beneficial for those already learning Python
• Special focus in built-in features
• Explains Duck Typing, generators, function and class decorators
• Discusses abstract base classes, multiple inheritance, mixins, and meta programming. 

Cons:

• This is not beneficial for beginners
• First time coders will find it hard
• Some readers found the code samples to be boring 
• Difficult to remember some topics
• There are codes without inline comments
• Unnecessary comparisons between Python and other languages

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Book 7: Learn Python 3 the Hardway

Learn Python 3 became available worldwide on June 27, 2017. Zed A. Shaw is the author of this book. Mr. Shaw has experience of 20+ years in programming languages. He is the creator of many open-source software. 

He has written other programming language books like Learn Ruby the Hard Way and Learns C the Hard Way. The author has written 52 practical examples that help the learners to learn Python in a fun way. 

There are live videos of the author showing details about breaking, fixing and debugging codes which helps the learners to get real-time information. This book easily explains many important Python concepts like strings and text, connection with users, working with files, looping and logic, managing data structures using lists and dictionaries, etc. 

It also allows the learners to know about program design, object-oriented programming, inheritance and composition, modules, classes, and objects as well as Python packaging, automated testing, basic game and web development. 

Beginners with no prior experience in coding will also be able to install a complete Python environment; organize, write, fix and break code. People with no scientific background can also easily understand basic mathematics and variables with this book. 

Beginners with no experience in Python or other programming languages, intermediate learners and Python developers who want to restart their careers can benefit from this book. 

Rating:

Pros:

• #36 in Python Programming
• #61 in Computer Programming Languages
• Readers with no coding knowledge can benefit from this book. 
• Readers can learn basic python syntax, printing (a lot), importing modules, basic IO, etc 
• Helps in Django projects
• Structure of the book is really good

Cons:

• No proper explanation of OOP
• Many Python learners do not recommend this book because of its uneasy details
• Many readers found the author skipping explanations and asking them to take help from Google. 
• The exercises are repetitive
• Slightly expensive

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Book 8: Think Python:

Think Python (2nd edition) became available worldwide on January 12, 2016. It only has 292 pages.  Allen Downey is the author of this book. Mr Downey has Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees from MIT. He is a PhD in Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley. 

Currently, he is a Professor of Computer Science at Olin College of Engineering. This book starts with basics of Python and proceeds to functions, recursion, data structures, and object-oriented design.

Some of the important topics are syntax and semantics, managing values, variables, statements, functions, and data structures in a logical progression, debugging methods to fix syntax, runtime, and semantic errors. 

Readers will also get to work and know about files and databases, interface design, data structures, and GUI-based programs through case studies. This book covers Python 3. So learners who are starting to code, high schoolers and programmers from other languages will get help from this book. 

Rating: 4.6

Pros:

• #5 in UML Language
• #25 in Object-Oriented Design
• #41 in Python Programming
• It is affordable
• Highly recommend to beginners 
• The layout and writing style is easy to understand
• This book gives a solid introduction to Python
• This covers most of the important Python features

Cons:

• Some readers may face difficulty in practices having maths
• Some chapters may look vague and little uneasy for beginners with no prior knowledge

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Book 9: Effective Python: 2nd edition

Effective Python (2nd edition) became available world-wide on November 15, 2019. It has 480 pages. Brett Slatkin is the author of this book. Mr. Slatkin is the principal software engineer at Google and is the technical co-founder of Google Surveys and PubSubHubbub protocol. 

He is a holder of BS in computer engineering from Columbia University and has more than 14 years of experience. The author has given 90 activities, tips and other important Python shortcuts that help the readers to get into the language quickly. 

Some of the important Python topics and features covered in this book are ways to optimize and harden to maximize performance and quality, methods and built-in modules that aid in debugging and testing, etc. It also describes the tools and best practices for collaborative development, metaclasses and dy18namic attributes and so on. 

Learners will get to know about the 30 new actions of Python. This will prepare them well for their newly developing skills. 

Rating: 4.7

Pros:

• #110 in Python Programming
• #196 in Computer Programming Languages
• Helps to learn syntax and manage errors
• It is beneficial for both beginners and advanced learners
• The concepts are very practical and is helpful for advanced learners too
• It easily explains the idiosyncrasies and native idioms of Python

Cons:

• Some readers felt the examples and advises are not clear 
• There are many aspects in this books which are not used now like f strings, super (), etc

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Book 10: Python Cookbook: 3rd Edition

Python CookBook (3rd edition) became available world-wide on June 11, 2013. It has 706 pages. David Beazley is the author of this book. Mr. Beazley has decades of experience in programming Python and currently teaches the same to engineers, software developers, etc. 

Also, he has created open source programmes like PLY and Swig. Brian K. Jones is the co-author of this book. He is a system administrator at Princeton University. 

This book is the updated version of Python 3.3. So experienced programmers can easily learn modern tools and idioms. Some of the important topics in this book help in creating and managing data structures and algorithms, strings, text, numbers, dates and times. 

It also briefs about Iterators and generators, files and I/O, data encoding and processing functions, etc. Other important topics like classes and objects, metaprogramming, modules and packages, network and web programming, concurrency, utility scripting and system administration, testing, debugging, C extensions are discussed. 

Rating: 4.6

Pros:

• #47 in Python Programming
• #53 in Software Development (Books)
• Readers will get to learn from many instructive examples 
• It describes specific features and programs for better understanding
• The codes are not lengthy so readers will not be confused 
• It is highly recommended for intermediate learners

Cons:

• Beginners will face little difficulty in understanding certain terms
• It is not highly suited for casual learners exploring Python

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Book 11: Clean code in Python: 2nd Edition:

Clean code in Python (2nd edition) became available world-wide on January 6, 2021. It has 422 pages. Mariano Anaya is the author of this book. He has several years of experience in Python and other related software fields. He was the speaker at Euro Python for the year 2016 and 2017. 

This book has features of Python 3.9. It describes asynchronous programming and its importance in Python. New Python libraries, decorators and descriptors are covered in this book thoroughly. 

This book takes the readers from the basic principles of Python to advanced topics in an easily understandable way. It has many practical hands-on examples that guide the readers through the process. 

Object-oriented topics are highly discussed in this book. Some of the important topics are code formation and managing tools, pythonic code, general traits of good code, etc.  Readers will also learn about the SOLID Principles, Using Decorators to Improve Code, Unit Testing and Refactoring, Common, Design Patterns, Clean Architecture, etc. 

Rating: 4.5

Pros:

• #58 in Software Design & Engineering
• #76 in Enterprise Applications
• This book is beneficial for beginners with basic concepts and advanced learners
• It is easy and comprehensible
• Many low-level, uncommon information are discussed
• No unnecessary metaphors

Cons:

• Some readers felt there’s usage of unnecessary long and confusing explanations
• Beginners may have some confusion at the start 
• Some readers felt this book is dense 

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Conclusion:

Python is one of the most used computer languages in today’s era. Many institutions and companies require at least basic Python knowledge to work and contribute benefits to society. 

This is the list of 11 best Python books. These books can help learners from any level like beginners, intermediate and advanced programmers. Even readers with no prior knowledge of coding and maths can check this list to gain and improve their knowledge of Python.  

Some of these books may make some programmers confused. However, these issues can be sorted easily if the readers are interested to learn more about Python. We have listed books that are authored by many famous and eminent personalities, speakers, professors, etc of reputed universities and software companies. 

Do you think there’s more? Let us know in the comment section if there are any Python other books that are on your mind.