What's the best way to learn python for beginners and what are good books to read and learn from?

If you already have some programming experience, one pretty good book to look into is "Beginning Python" by Magnus Lie Hetland.  It's part of the "From Novice to Professional" book series, so that may be part of the book title.

I used the original version of the book (titled "Practical Python", written for Python 2.x), but you'll definitely want to get the latest edition, updated for Python 3.  What I particularly liked about the original (and what made "Practical Python" a much better title, imho) was the last third or so of the book was a series of chapters, each about a different module in the Python library.

The new title is not inaccurate.  The book doesn't assume any prior Python knowledge, and could be used as a first book in programming.  However, the pace might be a bit of a challenge for some readers with no prior programming experience at all.