Good introductory book?

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

Hi, all.  I'm getting ready to do some projects in Python, and I've cut my
teeth a little bit, but I've found the "Learning|Programming Python" books
from O'Reilly to be more-or-less useless (to my surprise -- I'm usually an
O'Reilly fan).  I really, really like "Python Essential Reference", but
it's -- well, more of a reference than an intro.  So, an introductory text
that actually assumes some previous programming experience (as opposed to
"Learning Python" which must be the most slowly-paced programming book
ever) would be terrific.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Ken