I'm mostly a Python programmer (10 years), and spent a night last week reading the first ~8 chapters of the Rust book, and working slowly through the rest.

I confirm that it's a great book, easy to read, even if reading isn't usually your style of learning. Or you can jump in and look at the Rust by Example book.

I wanted to read through at least the bits that would be totally new and confusing to me in Rust - ownership, variable lifetime, references, etc.

I'm finishing up Chapter 10 and probably getting to the point where I'll need to start actually using the language to learn it, knowing there will be gaps to fill in later. I think Rust is such a broad language that it's probably better to start coding and cementing the basics instead of trying to learn everything all at once.