Some of the things I did, (I had a similar problem to you) ,
I got scripts off hotscripts ( the free ones), I looked at them, like killmonster and then I tried to generate a game/application which maybe used that code or parts of it.
Its probably not the best way to d it, but it worked for me, I got to look and study lots of code without it being in a book, and you actually get to see it working.
Hope that helps
John