python book for non technical absolute beginner

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Hi,

One of my 'non technical' friends complained about knowing nothing at
all about programming (though using computers regularly for mails / web
browsing / googling and downloading / cropping photos )

He wants to play a little with programming to stimulate parts of his
otehrwise idle brain cells. ;-) Normally it's more the social science /
linguistic parts being exercised,

I thought python might be a nice language for this

No my question does anybody know a nice beginners book (or a learning CD
or on line tutorial)? Ideally it shouldn't be too serious and have a lot
of small nice mini-examples

thanks in advance for any suggestions hints


bye


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