Top Data Analytics books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Data Analytics books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Data Analytics

Understanding the concepts of Data Analytics starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Data Science for Business: What You Need to Know about Data Mining and Data-Analytic Thinking

Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also disc…

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Data Engineering Cookbook

Five types of content are in this book: Articles the author wrote, links to his podcast episodes (video & audio), more than 200 links to helpful websites he like, data engineering interview questions and case studies.

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Becoming a Data Head: How to Think, Speak, and Understand Data Science, Statistics, and Machine Learning

Turn yourself into a Data Head. You'll become a more valuable employee and make your organization more successful.
Thomas H. Davenport, Research Fellow, Author of Competing on Analytics, Big Data @ Work, and The AI Advantage
You've heard the hype around data?now get the facts.
In Becoming a Data Head: How to Think, Speak, and Understand Data Science, Statistics, and Machine Learning, …

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Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

Don't simply show your data—tell a story with it! Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory, but made accessible through numerous real-world examples—ready for…

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SQL for Data Analytics - Third Edition: Harness the power of SQL to extract insights from data

Every day, businesses operate around the clock, and a huge amount of data is generated at a rapid pace. This book helps you analyze this data and identify key patterns and behaviors that can help you and your business understand your customers at a deep, fundamental level.
SQL for Data Analytics, Third Edition is a great way to get started with data analysis, showing how to effectively sort…

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Data Analytics, Data Visualization & Communicating Data: 3 books in 1: Learn the Processes of Data Analytics and Data Science, Create Engaging Data ... Present Data Effectively (All Things Data)

Harvard Business Review called data science “the sexiest job of the 21st century,” so it's no surprise that the number of data science jobs has grown 20x in the last three years. With demand outpacing supply, companies are willing to pay top dollar for talented data professionals. However…
To truly excel, it's not enough to throw some data from a database into a spreadsheet—you must transfo…

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Additional Data Analytics Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Data Analytics, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Data Analytics, Data Visualization & Communicating Data: 3 books in 1: Learn the Processes of Data Analytics and Data Science, Create Engaging Data Visualizations, and Present Data Effectively

Harvard Business Review called data science “the sexiest job of the 21st century,” so it's no surprise that data science jobs have grown up to 20x in the last 3 years. With demand outpacing supply, companies are willing to pay top dollar for talented data professionals. However…To stand out in one of these positions, having foundational knowledge of interpreting data is essential. You can be a…

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R for Data Science

This book will teach you how to do data science with R: You’ll learn how to get your data into R, get it into the most useful structure, transform it, visualise it and model it. In this book, you will find a practicum of skills for data science.

Just as a chemist learns how to clean test tubes and stock a lab, you’ll learn how to clean data and draw plots—and many other things besides.…

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Python for Data Analysis

Get complete instructions for manipulating, processing, cleaning, and crunching datasets in Python. Updated for Python 3.6, the second edition of this hands-on guide is packed with practical case studies that show you how to solve a broad set of data analysis problems effectively. You'll learn the latest versions of pandas, NumPy, IPython, and Jupyter in the process.
Written by Wes McKinney…

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Getting Started with DuckDB: A practical guide for accelerating your data science, data analytics, and data engineering workflows

DuckDB is a fast in-process analytical database. Getting Started with DuckDB offers a practical overview of its usage. You'll learn to load, transform, and query various data formats, including CSV, JSON, and Parquet. The book covers DuckDB's optimizations, SQL enhancements, and extensions for specialized applications. Working with examples in SQL, Python, and R, you'll explore analyzing publi…

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Doing data science

Now that people are aware that data can make the difference in an election or a business model, data science as an occupation is gaining ground. But how can you get started working in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary field that's so clouded in hype? This insightful book, based on Columbia University's Introduction to Data Science class, tells you what you need to know.
In many of these cha…

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Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data

Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called "sexy." From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know whi…

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This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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