Programming newbie coming from Ruby: a few Python questions

[simonharrison at fastmail.co.uk]

Hi all. I've been try to learn ruby for a few months but I'm about
ready to give up. The available books either assume a programming
background, or are out of date. Anyway, I think python may suit me more
due to its 'theres one way to do it' philosophy (hope the quote is
right)! Another quote that I liked was:

 'Clever is not considered a compliment in Python.' (don't know where I
read that...)

In Ruby, there are many ways to do the same thing and cleverness seems
to be held in high regard. These attitudes are not too helpful for
beginners in my experience. Anyway, enough waffle.

What books and tutorials are recommended to learn Python? The tutorial
that comes with Python is great and has given me a good overview but I
think I'd benefit from some programming projects, now I have a little
understanding of how Python works.

Ideally, I'd like a whole series of projects where I'm walked through
how to go about writing real Python. The way I look at it, nobody
learnt to build a house just from reading about building materials!

Any other tips for getting up to speed with Python fairly quickly will
be greatly appreciated.

If anyone can help, thanks very much