Yeah, I'm writing a book. It's in its earliest stages, but I'm posting drafts publicly as I write them in order to get feedback on what I've written so far.
I've got a copy here in .pdf form. Currently, sources are in Apple Pages format, as I don't currently know any TeX variant (though I can well imagine that I'll be learning that well before this is through).
Because I'm unemployed and I'm bored. Also, I feel I know enough about Python in particular to get someone from knowing absolutely nothing about programming through to a first release of an application, whether that's on the desktop or the web.
I'm planning on covering the default Python libraries and types as well as a primer on Django in a not-quite separate part. Yes, I'm going to use Tkinter. It's ugly, but it's readily available and it's fairly easy to use. I'm even planning on covering SQLite3 insofar as it can be used in Python.
I'm targeting people who want to write their first application in Python, as well as introductory programming students. As such, I'm planning on presenting things in an easy to read, yet relatively quick manner. I also intend to provide exercises in a separate addendum for academic and personal enrichment use.
The two guides doing something similar to my project that I know of are Learn You A Haskell For Great Good and Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby, which admittedly target a similar demographic but use different languages. These are both great texts, and I really just want to do something similar in Python. Likewise, the only excellent text for Python is Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into Python, which targets a somewhat more experienced crowd. That said, those books have the obvious benefit of actually existing in a fully functional form right now.
I do need a few things. Feedback would be nice: you can give me that through any of my posted contact links. Also, if you're an artist doing absolutely nothing at the moment, I'd appreciate some amusing yet related cartoons for illustrative formats. I've right now got just a wall of text, and that just won't do. If you want to help, again, email me.