Machine Learning Bookshelf by No Starch Press (pay what you want and help charity)
Humble Book Bundle: Python Programming by No Starch Press
Hi, I'm Al Sweigart, author of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python. I'm obviously not objective, but I truly think No Starch Press has the best tech books. I've worked with their editors for about five years, and they really put a lot of effort into making their books great. I especially like how they're totally fine with putting my books out under a Creative Commons license, and they often partner with Humble Bundle to help out great nonprofits.
This bundle is benefiting the Python Software Foundation, which could always use more funds. (I saw a panel talk at PyBay this past weekend, and they're growing at an impressive rate so their fundraising needs to as well.)
Here's my brief review of the books in this bundle: (tl;dr: pay the $15 tier (or more! The PSF is awesome!) to get all of the books.)
$1 Tier
-
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python - One of my books. It's great for complete beginners, and after the Python basics, it covers many practical tasks like web scraping, GUI automation, sending emails, updating spreadsheets, etc.
-
Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python - One of my books. It's for complete beginners, and goes through the source code for several simple text-based game projects like Tic Tac Toe and Hangman. The last few chapters covers Pygame and 2D graphics.
-
Black Hat Python - Kind of old but still useful. I like how it explores networking and Python's networking modules, as well as doing some Windows API stuff from Python.
-
Python for Kids - Also a great beginner's book, similar to Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python. Also covers a bit of Pygame.
-
Code Craft - I haven't read this one completely, but it seems similar to Clean Code. It seems to be one of the lesser No Starch Press titles, but from the parts I've read I didn't feel like I was wasting my time.
$8 Tier
-
Cracking Codes with Python - One of my books. It's for complete beginners, but instead of games it covers "classic" ciphers (meaning, ciphers used before world war 2 and computers). I saw that there were a ton of "spies and codes" books out there, but very few that covered how to crack these codes and none about writing programs to crack these codes.
-
Doing Math with Python - A decent book for people with very basic Pyhton understanding. It's sort of like, "what if instead of calculators we used computers and programming to do math" kind of thing. It's a good book for "I don't think I can learn to program because I'm not good at math" types. Good for teachers/parents (though I like Teach Your Kids to Code more)
-
Gray Hat Python - This has been on my to-read list for a long time. Pairs well with Black Hat Python. Instead of covering networking stuff, it covers Windows internals and cracking stuff.
-
Python Playground - A collection of various programming projects, if you'd like to see how some actual programs are made. Mostly fun visualizations and audio stuff, and the last chapter has arduino & raspberry pi projects.
-
Teach Your Kids to Code - I really like this book as a guide for parents or teachers or anyone who wants to do an afterschool code club with friends. It covers some turtle graphics in Python and then some Pygame programming as well. It's a really nice, gentle introduction to coding.
$15 Tier
-
Serious Python - On my too-read list. A very good intermediate title (there's not many books between beginner & advanced). Covers a lot of software development best practices for people who are done with Hello, World tutorials but not yet experts. Or, if you're experienced in other languages and platforms, a good overview of the Python ecosystem. Totally makes the $15 tier worth it by itself.
-
Impractical Python Projects - Like Python Playground but even better, in my opinion. Several projects that are worth working through for intermediate level folks (or anyone who wants more experience writing code).
-
Math Adventures with Python - Like Doing Math With Python but I admit I like this book more. It's great for teachers/parents/code club instructors, and a lot of the math is presented using fun projects like drawing fractals or cellular automata stuff.
-
Mission Python - I've been wanting to write a book similar to this: Using Python and PygameZero, this book covers the entire process of making a moderate-sized game. Definitely good for a beginner who'd like to eventually work up to game development (even if as a hobby).
No matter what, I think these books range from good to really good (though they might not cover a subject area you're interested in). The No Starch Press books aren't hit-or-miss like with Packt titles.
More on reddit.com