Python and the Python Cookbook

I'm disappointed with O'Reilly's Python Cookbook (Second Edition). It's unfortunate because I've found their "Cookbooks" for other languages to be A) a good way to pick up the fundamentals while B) learn recipes for common programming tasks. The Python Cookbook skimps on the language fundamentals while, despite its huge bulk, having few recipes for task types that I can imagine needing to know.

For instance, there are no examples of an XPath API, which I'd consider indispensable. One of the first things I wanted to do was take the Netflix Queue XHTML and simply extract the titles. I dug up some old Java code to do it.

The chapter on XML doesn't even have any examples of creating XML! And every Python example I've seen so far does it by simply spitting out strings. Where are the equivalents of StAX, DOM, JDOM, or (wishful thinking) E4X?

I appreciate Python's attempt to be clean, consistent, and object-oriented... in marked contrast to Perl's hodge-podge gumbo of pre-OOP stuff like C, Bourne shell, and so on. But the OOP chapter is just bizarre, full of things that I've never needed to worry about in Java.

The chapters on network and web programming don't show how to post to a web server or do authentication. The online library reference is useful, but very short on complete examples. I could go on, but suffice it to say that without Google searches, I wouldn't have gotten very far with Python.