newbie question: should I learn TKinter or skip it and learn more advanced toolkit?

[Paramjit Oberoi]

>> I'm in a process of digging into Python, and one of the problems I'm
>> having is whether I should spend any time at all learning TKinter or
>> skip it and start with more advanced staff like wx or QT.

This topic has been beaten to death many, many times; and you are likely
to get responses that are as contradictory as the books you mentioned. 
What I recommend is: learn what is *immediately* useful to you.

Choose a small app that you are going to write, and then take a 20-mins
per toolkit tour of Tkinter, wxPython, PyQT, PyGTK---look at code samples,
documentation, hello world tutorials, screenshots---and pick the one that
seems most desirable.  If you don't like it, later you can pick another.

My personal recommendation: if you are on linux: PyGTK.  If you are on
windows, one of PyGTK/wxPython.  PyGTK is supposed to work on windows; I
have no personal experience of it though.

-param