Here are 51 books that Effective Python fans have personally recommended if you like Effective Python. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Effective Pandas

Wes McKinney Author Of Python for Data Analysis

From my list on Python books for leveling up your data skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Wes McKinney, creator of the Python pandas project and author of Python for Data Analysis. I have been using Python for data work since 2007 and have worked extensively in the open source community to build accessible and fast data processing tools for Python programmers.

Wes' book list on Python books for leveling up your data skills

Wes McKinney Why Wes loves this book

This is a super useful book published more recently that shows how to make the most of pandas’s deep toolbelt of features.

Compared with Python for Data Analysis, it explores some of the newer features added to pandas, and I think that any advanced pandas user will become more effective in their day to day work by reading it. 

By Matt Harrison ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Effective Pandas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Best practices for manipulating data with Pandas. This book will arm you with years of knowledge and experience that are condensed into an easy to follow format. Rather than taking months reading blogs and websites and searching mailing lists and groups, this book will teach you how to write good Pandas code.

It covers: Series manipulation Creating columns Summary statistics Grouping, pivoting, and cross-tabulation Time series data Visualization Chaining Debugging code and more...


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Introduction to Machine Learning with Python: A Guide for Data Scientists

Wes McKinney Author Of Python for Data Analysis

From my list on Python books for leveling up your data skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Wes McKinney, creator of the Python pandas project and author of Python for Data Analysis. I have been using Python for data work since 2007 and have worked extensively in the open source community to build accessible and fast data processing tools for Python programmers.

Wes' book list on Python books for leveling up your data skills

Wes McKinney Why Wes loves this book

This is a great follow-up book to Python Data Science Handbook.

Co-authored by one of the core developers of scikit-learn, this provides a deeper introduction to doing machine learning work in Python. This will give you a solid foundation to be able to move on later to deeper topics including deep learning or other AI topics.

By Andreas C. Müller , Sarah Guido ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Introduction to Machine Learning with Python as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Machine learning has become an integral part of many commercial applications and research projects, but this field is not exclusive to large companies with extensive research teams. If you use Python, even as a beginner, this book will teach you practical ways to build your own machine learning solutions. With all the data available today, machine learning applications are limited only by your imagination. You'll learn the steps necessary to create a successful machine-learning application with Python and the scikit-learn library. Authors Andreas Muller and Sarah Guido focus on the practical aspects of using machine learning algorithms, rather than the…


Book cover of Python Polars

Wes McKinney Author Of Python for Data Analysis

From my list on Python books for leveling up your data skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Wes McKinney, creator of the Python pandas project and author of Python for Data Analysis. I have been using Python for data work since 2007 and have worked extensively in the open source community to build accessible and fast data processing tools for Python programmers.

Wes' book list on Python books for leveling up your data skills

Wes McKinney Why Wes loves this book

Polars is a new modern data frame library, powered by Apache Arrow, that has grown like wildfire in the Python ecosystem in recent years. It provides many of the same capabilities as pandas, but with substantially better performance and scalability.

I recommend that Python programmers become proficient at both Polars and pandas, since while pandas is ubiquitous, more and more work will shift to Polars in the coming years.

By Jeroen Janssens , Thijs Nieuwdorp ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Python Polars as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Want to speed up your data analysis and work with larger-than-memory datasets? Python Polars offers a blazingly fast, multithreaded, and elegant API for data loading, manipulation, and processing. With this hands-on guide, you'll walk through every aspect of Polars and learn how to tackle practical use cases using real-world datasets.

Jeroen Janssens and Thijs Nieuwdorp from Xomnia in Amsterdam show you how this superfast DataFrame library is perfect for efficient data wrangling, ETL pipelines, and so much more. This book helps you quickly learn the syntax and understand Polars' underlying concepts. You don't need to have experience with pandas or…


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of Python Data Science Handbook

Wes McKinney Author Of Python for Data Analysis

From my list on Python books for leveling up your data skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Wes McKinney, creator of the Python pandas project and author of Python for Data Analysis. I have been using Python for data work since 2007 and have worked extensively in the open source community to build accessible and fast data processing tools for Python programmers.

Wes' book list on Python books for leveling up your data skills

Wes McKinney Why Wes loves this book

While this book has a good amount of overlap with my book, it provides a valuable introduction to scikit-learn, one of the most popular libraries for machine learning in Python. There is also excellent content to improve your data visualization skills with matplotlib.

By Jake VanderPlas ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Python Data Science Handbook as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For many researchers, Python is a first-class tool mainly because of its libraries for storing, manipulating, and gaining insight from data. Several resources exist for individual pieces of this data science stack, but only with the Python Data Science Handbook do you get them all-IPython, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-Learn, and other related tools. Working scientists and data crunchers familiar with reading and writing Python code will find this comprehensive desk reference ideal for tackling day-to-day issues: manipulating, transforming, and cleaning data; visualizing different types of data; and using data to build statistical or machine learning models. Quite simply, this is…


Book cover of Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming

Naomi R. Ceder Author Of The Quick Python Book

From my list on to level up your Python skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been teaching and writing Python code (and managing others while they write Python code) for over 20 years. After all that time Python is still my tool of choice, and many times Python is the key part of how I explore and think about problems. My experience as a teacher also has prompted me to dig in and look for the simplest way of understanding and explaining the elegant way that Python features fit together. 

Naomi's book list on to level up your Python skills

Naomi R. Ceder Why Naomi loves this book

Luciano’s book is one of the most complete discussions of the ins and outs of Python that I’ve seen. He is fascinated by coding in general and it comes across as he explores the ways Python is similar to (and different from) other language paradigms. This is the book I take out if I’m starting to dig in and explore a feature of Python, and if you want to understand the details beneath the details, this is the book for you. 

By Luciano Ramalho ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Fluent Python as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Learn how to write idiomatic, effective Python code by leveraging its best features. Python's simplicity quickly lets you become productive with it, but this often means you aren't using everything the language has to offer. By taking you through Python's key language features and libraries, this practical book shows you how to make your code shorter, faster, and more readable all at the same time--what experts consider "Pythonic."Many programmers who learn Python basics fall into the trap of reinventing the wheel because of past experience in other languages, and try to bend the language to patterns that don't really apply…


Book cover of High Performance Django

Arun Ravindran Author Of Django Design Patterns and Modern Best Practices

From my list on Django for building solid web apps in Python.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been dabbling in Python for the last 22 years. I am a regular speaker at Pycon India ever since its inception. Most of my talks are related to Django. I host arunrocks.com where I write tutorials, and articles and publish screencasts on several Django and Python topics. My initial screencast titled "Building a blog in 30 mins with Django" is one of the most popular screencasts for beginners in Django. I’m a developer member of the Django Software Foundation.

Arun's book list on Django for building solid web apps in Python

Arun Ravindran Why Arun loves this book

Building scalable and performant web applications is both an art and a science. This book focused on such techniques and hence goes beyond what most books on Django try to cover. Anyone running a Django site under heavy load will definitely learn a few tips from this book. However, it is light on explanations and expects you to figure out many things from reading the examples.

By Peter Baumgartner , Yann Malet ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked High Performance Django as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of Practices of the Python Pro

Naomi R. Ceder Author Of The Quick Python Book

From my list on to level up your Python skills.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been teaching and writing Python code (and managing others while they write Python code) for over 20 years. After all that time Python is still my tool of choice, and many times Python is the key part of how I explore and think about problems. My experience as a teacher also has prompted me to dig in and look for the simplest way of understanding and explaining the elegant way that Python features fit together. 

Naomi's book list on to level up your Python skills

Naomi R. Ceder Why Naomi loves this book

Dane covers the more advanced topics a programmer needs to be successful as a professional. In particular, he has good discussions of the basics of software design – things like separation of concerns, encapsulation, testing, and performance, as well as some of the issues involved with creating and maintaining large-scale systems. This is the book that I wish I’d had early in my coding career. 

By Dane Hillard ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Practices of the Python Pro as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Summary
Professional developers know the many benefits of writing application code that’s clean, well-organized, and easy to maintain. By learning and following established patterns and best practices, you can take your code and your career to a new level.
With Practices of the Python Pro, you’ll learn to design professional-level, clean, easily maintainable software at scale using the incredibly popular programming language, Python. You’ll find easy-to-grok examples that use pseudocode and Python to introduce software development best practices, along with dozens of instantly useful techniques that will help you code like a pro.

Purchase of the print book includes a…


Book cover of Mission Python: Code a Space Adventure Game!

Daniel Zingaro Author Of Learn to Code by Solving Problems: A Python Programming Primer

From my list on for a rock solid python programming foundation.

Why am I passionate about this?

Some programmers learn through online articles, videos, and blog posts. Not me. I need a throughline—a consistent, expert distillation of the material to take me from where I am to where I want to be. I am not good at patching together information from disparate sources. I need a great book. I have a PhD in computer science education, and I want to know what helps people learn. More importantly, I want to know how we can use such discoveries to write more effective books. The books I appreciate most are those that demonstrate not only mastery of the subject matter but also mastery of teaching.

Daniel's book list on for a rock solid python programming foundation

Daniel Zingaro Why Daniel loves this book

Learning how to program in Python and make a video game at the same time. Hmm – sounds like learning your native language while writing a novel. That could be messy. Could be – but not with this book. McManus knows video games. McManus knows how to teach. I love the idea of teaching a programming language through one extended context. If, like me, you’re fascinated by retro video games, get this book and let that fascination propel you through your beginning programming journey. Bonus feature: commitment to the bit; everything is in space!

By Sean McManus ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mission Python as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

Launch into coding with Mission: Python, a space-themed guide to building a complete computer game in Python. As you work through the book, you'll build exercises and mini-projects, like making a spacewalk simulator and creating an astronaut's safety checklist that will put your new Python skills to the test. Before you know it, you'll have a working, awesome game to stump your friends with (and some nifty coding skills, too!). You can follow this book using a Raspberry Pi or a Microsoft Windows PC, and the 3D graphics and sound effects you need are provided as a download.


Book cover of Python for Everybody: Exploring Data in Python 3

Daniel Zingaro Author Of Learn to Code by Solving Problems: A Python Programming Primer

From my list on for a rock solid python programming foundation.

Why am I passionate about this?

Some programmers learn through online articles, videos, and blog posts. Not me. I need a throughline—a consistent, expert distillation of the material to take me from where I am to where I want to be. I am not good at patching together information from disparate sources. I need a great book. I have a PhD in computer science education, and I want to know what helps people learn. More importantly, I want to know how we can use such discoveries to write more effective books. The books I appreciate most are those that demonstrate not only mastery of the subject matter but also mastery of teaching.

Daniel's book list on for a rock solid python programming foundation

Daniel Zingaro Why Daniel loves this book

Learning to program is hard. We need teachers who remember this, who are patient, who support the learning process, who not only know how to teach but also know how to learn from their teaching. Severance is all of these things. I like the breezy but precise writing, sections on debugging, glossaries and exercises in each chapter, and discussion of common learner errors. Bonus feature: regular expressions.

By Charles R. Severance ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Python for Everybody as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Python for Everybody is designed to introduce students to programming and software development through the lens of exploring data. You can think of the Python programming language as your tool to solve data problems that are beyond the capability of a spreadsheet.

Python is an easy to use and easy to learn programming language that is freely available on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux computers. So once you learn Python you can use it for the rest of your career without needing to purchase any software.

This book uses the Python 3 language. The earlier Python 2 version of this book…


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of Hello World! A Complete Python-Based Computer Programming Tutorial with Fun Illustrations, Examples, and Hand-On Exercises.

Daniel Zingaro Author Of Learn to Code by Solving Problems: A Python Programming Primer

From my list on for a rock solid python programming foundation.

Why am I passionate about this?

Some programmers learn through online articles, videos, and blog posts. Not me. I need a throughline—a consistent, expert distillation of the material to take me from where I am to where I want to be. I am not good at patching together information from disparate sources. I need a great book. I have a PhD in computer science education, and I want to know what helps people learn. More importantly, I want to know how we can use such discoveries to write more effective books. The books I appreciate most are those that demonstrate not only mastery of the subject matter but also mastery of teaching.

Daniel's book list on for a rock solid python programming foundation

Daniel Zingaro Why Daniel loves this book

I’m a kid at heart. (My favourite book genre is middle grade fiction.) Don’t be put off by a book with "kids" in the subtitle. And what an ebullient book this is! I unapologetically laugh at this book’s humour. I like the short chapters with measurable progress in each one; I like the easy GUI programming to get us started; I like the computational study of probability and randomness. I could quibble over the order that some topics are introduced, and some of the forward references… but, you know what? I won’t. This author duo gets it. Bonus feature: that sneaky way of introducing mutability in Chapter 2. Bonus feature #2: SkiFree.

By Warren Sande , Carter Sande ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hello World! A Complete Python-Based Computer Programming Tutorial with Fun Illustrations, Examples, and Hand-On Exercises. as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Hello World! Third Edition is a fun, easy-to-use guide with copious illustrations and engaging examples. It takes the reader on a playful tour of basic programming concepts and then puts those concepts together to make fun and useful programs. It uses Python, a programming language that is one of the easiest to read, write, and understand. Like the previous two editions, Hello World! Third Edition is not just for kids. While the tone is light and engaging, it doesn't "talk down" to the reader, and beginners of any age will love its readability and sense of humor. Written by Warren…


Book cover of Effective Pandas
Book cover of Introduction to Machine Learning with Python: A Guide for Data Scientists
Book cover of Python Polars

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