I would be wary of focusing on length, since longer books have useful end of chapter exercises and more explanatory text rather than (possibly dead) links. Cra

I would be wary of focusing on length, since longer books have useful end of chapter exercises and more explanatory text rather than (possibly dead) links. Cracking Codes with Python: An Introduction to Building and Breaking Ciphers is under five hundred pages and will make you more powerful than most American civil war era generals. Here's an online copy: https://inventwithpython.com/cracking/ https://inventwithpython.com/cracking/ Happy to help! (Previously I tried the ESR approach of starting with C, and got frustrated and gave up. Learn python, and learn the math the broken American K-12 system did not teach you in one fell swoop -- you'll learn a lot about algerbra and pretty much anything not involving weird curves.) If you decide to learn C, the K&R C book mentioned in this thread IS useful. I think I have my copy stashed away with my lockpicks, rope, razor blades, and boxes of matches I bought before the pandemic. (A Boy Scout is always prepared, even if all of BSA along with the church they met in has gone bankrupt.) Also, the "K&R book" is ISBN number 9780131101630, in case you, the OP, being a non engineer, don't know what the acronym mentioned elsewhere in the thread was :-)