Surprised no one's mentioned Zed Shaw or his Learn Python the Hard Way series... http://learncodethehardway.org/ http://learncodethehardway.org/ According to

Surprised no one's mentioned Zed Shaw or his Learn Python the Hard Way series... http://learncodethehardway.org/ http://learncodethehardway.org/ According to his homepage, his books have been downloaded 500,000 times. Don't know if those are all paying charges but he also sells online tutorials.