Also there are many books online which don't need to go through the hoops you describe.
I agree that there are many books online though, and they can provide a lot of nice things like running code samples in your browser. However, I find video tutorials to provide a better experience than books, online or not. I suppose that's just a matter of personal preference though.
However Javascript (in its current ES7 version) is a pretty good language.
That being said, there are some pretty fundamental abstract concepts behind all forms of programming that have stuck around for a long time: those old comp sci course materials. I'd recommend turning to books for some of that content, as picking up some knowledge there will support you no matter what programming language you try to learn.
Having said that it is a good idea to learn about these early and keep them in mind. Sadly there isn't a good definitive list of JS' idiosyncrasy that I know of.
If you're doing front-end work, then React and Redux (or Angular, or jQuery, or whatever.)
If you're doing Node.js, try reading through the lib/ folder of Node's source (the js code goes in lib/, the c++ goes in src/), and follow that with packages like express and request.
When you hit an interesting/confusing/etc. dependency, track it down and read it's source too.
By the time the author writes it, it's published, and you read it, the information can be dated, sometimes extremely so.
There are gobs of online resources, and the best resource is rarely mentioned: reading other peoples code.
Once you get a basic understanding, you can start right clicking on webpages, "inspect source", opening the console window, and looking at how pages actually work. The debugger and single stepping chrome are quite good.