Ranging from excellent (A+) to very good (A-), although much too brief for me (sigh), Guide to programming for the digital humanities: lessons for introductory Python is written in a voice that is clear, easy to read, and simple to understand. This fantastically well-organized book first gives the reader a series of progressively more detailed top-down views of its content, and of the concise limits to its scope; specifically, it includes a multi-layered outline (table of contents), followed by sincere personal narratives explaining the emergence of digital humanities (DH) from academic needs, a brief overview of DH, a guide to finding a student’s respective DH strata, and some observations regarding the author’s revisions--which are based on (still ongoing) years of teaching Python for DH to future-oriented undergraduates.

Next comes what I may best describe as the pearly gates to contemporary computer science (CS) wisdom: a meaningful review of the ACM’s 2013 Computer Science Curricula Report. In subsequent chapters, this merges with the author’s appreciation for the diverse density-of-detail capacities of students in typical classrooms, to give rise to an insightful discussion of “finding the balance between CS and DH.” Finally, the majority of this book is comprised of a discretely ordered sequence of chapters; these follow the ACM Curricula, by explicating respectively appropriate lectures, assignments, and mini-projects for progressively introducing humanities students to one of the currently most powerful CS toolsets: Python.

Now, without any criticism of the author intended, the problem that I have with this book relates to a postmodern educational presumption. Specifically, the actual course materials for learning Python (which are not in this book) are gleaned, compiled, copied, downloaded, and/or possibly extracted from an already vibrant anthology of teaching materials for CS-focused (not DH) Python students. Alternately stated, this book appears to be the companion to a nonexistent Fundamentals of programming in Python textbook anthology. Please note: the book cover clearly states “EXTRAS ONLINE,” but since I could not access (nor assess) these “extras,” it unfortunately remains unknown as to whether they are (A) complementary Python fundamentals (which nothing in the book so indicates) or (B) details and extensions of the book’s wonderful teaching resources (a much more likely speculation). Nevertheless, my thanks to the author for inspiring me with such a beautifully written and profoundly organized work.