HTML parser documentation

[sh]

I want to write program to extract info out of web sites, process the info,
and then republish it on my web page.

I heard that Python is the best language to do this, and it is an ideal
language to learn programming (i.e. I'm not much of a programmer).  The
online info on Python.org is too difficult for me to understand.

Can anyone please suggest a well written web page or book that can help a
newbie like me learn this subject matter?  I've researched Python books
online, but none of the descriptions mention coverage of HTML parsing.

Any tool that can help me write my program better?

Thanks in advance.
- sh