The biggest problem with books is that they cover things exhaustively. What tutorials do is teach you a few interesting things, that cause you to become more interested, and then you want to learn more. If books started off with an interesting tutorial up front, more people would want to read them, but they typically start with very elementary things that bore the readers before they get to the "good stuff." That's been my experience anyway, not sure if everyone shares that same view.
I'll be writing more about the benefits of learning by doing, because in my experience there is a LOT that you DON'T learn when you just buy hosting and use CPanel to manage your servers. It pays to just setup a server yourself at least once, you'd have a new found appreciation for what many developers take for granted =D