I love Zed but I couldn't recommend Learn C the Hard Way to a beginner. The book starts out good, but then greatly ramps up complexity around chapter 17 (heap and stack memory allocation) without a good introduction to many new concepts, explanations are just completely missing. Most people I know who've all tried to go through the book ultimately start to lose interest and give up there unfortunately.
LCTHW is for absolute beginners. It lacks accuracy necessary for people writing C. It's good as an introduction, perhaps to capture interest, but no more than that.
