I recently received a copy of Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python by Joel Lawhead. I had wondered if the book was for me since the book is intended for people with strong Python skills who would like to understand digital mapping. I have a Masters in GIS and a number of years experience as a GIS Analyst and have a decent grasp of Python.
This book ended up being very useful for me as I try to get away from only being able to use esri's products for all my GIS needs. Learning Geospatial Analysis with Python did cover a lot of basics about GIS but there is also a lot of good information on how to manipulate and analyze spatial data, mostly using pure Python but also only a very few additional libraries.
I now have confidence in moving towards using more open source software for my GIS analysis knowing that it's fairly easy to fall back to pure Python to fill in any automation or analysis gaps. The examples in the book have also given me an idea on how to fix elevation data and add weather data to my GPS tracks with a simple script.
