Otherwise, I'm still recommending against learning Python the hard way. That might depend on a person, but I don't think typing some samples can make an interesting task, and AFAIKT doing things that are not interesting for you makes learning process a lot less efficient.

Judging from my experience, the best way to start learning the language is having some actual work done (e.g., building a site with Django). Correspondingly, books you'd need are references—Python's docs, Python Essential Reference. You can use LPTHW as a reference, too, just do something more useful than its samples.