python cookbook
Seeing as how the Second Edition just came out, I thought I'd pick a copy up to have a nice, up-to-date reference for Python.
The Python Cookbook is definitely a true Cookbook-style book: snort snippets of information that are independent of each other. It assumes you already know the Python language and are looking for a good reference or just need to learn some new tricks by example.
There are tons of topics covered in this book: sorting, time, text, XML, Systems Administration, and more. Each recipe is complete with problem, solution, and discussion. The discussions are incredibly detailed which is understandable since they're written by some of the best Python programmers around. In fact, most of the discussion will give you about ten times more information than you needed to know about the problem you looked up -- but it's all relevant to the topic.
While you could read this book from front to back and pick up some interesting tips, I wouldn't recommend doing so. There's just way too much information in this book to cram in your head. Instead, flip through the pages and note the different types of tricks and topics that are covered. Then try to remember them while you're coding and take a look back at the book.
I give this book a 9/10.
