I can write to but cannot read from Excel using python.

[snippsat]

What is the $ prompt?

As mention is linux specific,the same in Windows is command line cmd.

C:\Windows\System32>cd\

# pip most work like this and you should be using 3.6
C:\>pip -V
pip 9.0.1 from c:\python36\lib\site-packages (python 3.6)

C:\>pip install xlrd
Collecting xlrd
  Using cached xlrd-1.1.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: xlrd
Successfully installed xlrd-1.1.0

C:\>python
Python 3.6.2 (v3.6.2:5fd33b5, Jul  8 2017, 04:14:34) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import xlrd
>>> xlrd.__VERSION__
'1.1.0'
>>> exit()

C:\>

To make sure it work like this Python 3.6 and pip installation under Windows
Did you read my reply in your last post?