Best Beginner's Guide To Python?

[Dang Griffith]

On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 23:25:36 -0800, "sean" <sean_berry at cox.net> wrote:

...
>If you are looking for a good book... look no further than the Oreilly
>series of books on Python.  Also, I found the python book by deitel to be a
>pretty good beginning read.  As previously mentioned... the python tutorial
>on python.org is a great thing to check out as well.
...
Really?  I've seen the Dietel C++ and Java books, and did not find
them very good.  They weigh a ton and have a lot of information, but
the index wasn't very good for "random access".  Do you (or does
anyone else) know if the Python book is better than the C++/Java
books?  

If I've already gone through the OReilly books (except the cookbook)
and Dr Mertz' Text Processing, is there much/anything to be gained
from the Dietel book?
    Thanks,
        --dang