Top Machine Learning 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 Machine Learning books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Machine Learning

Understanding the concepts of Machine Learning 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.

Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners: A Plain English Introduction (Third Edition)

Featured by Tableau as the first of ""7 Books About Machine Learning for Beginners."" Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners Third Edition has been written and designed for absolute beginners. This means plain-English explanations and no coding experience required. Where core algorithms are introduced, clear explanations and visual examples are added to make it easy to follow along at home. R…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Hundred-page Machine Learning Book

Peter Norvig, Research Director at Google, co-author of AIMA, the most popular AI textbook in the world: "Burkov has undertaken a very useful but impossibly hard task in reducing all of machine learning to 100 pages. He succeeds well in choosing the topics — both theory and practice — that will be useful to practitioners, and for the reader who understands that this is the first 100 (or actual…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Bishop's book on pattern recognition is a classic textbook and staple in Machine Learning. Beimg aimed at grad students, but also at researchers and practitioners, it's no easy lecture, but a truly fundamental course book.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms

Machine learning is one of the fastest growing areas of computer science, with far-reaching applications. The aim of this textbook is to introduce machine learning, and the algorithmic paradigms it offers, in a principled way. The book provides an extensive theoretical account of the fundamental ideas underlying machine learning and the mathematical derivations that transform these principles …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Machine Learning with PyTorch and Scikit-Learn: Develop Machine Learning and Deep Learning Models with Python

This book of the bestselling and widely acclaimed Python Machine Learning series is a comprehensive guide to machine and deep learning using PyTorch s simple to code framework.
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in PDF format.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Introduction to Machine Learning with Python: A Guide for Data Scientists

Machine learning has become an integral part of many commercial applications and research projects, but this field is not exclusive to large companies with extensive research teams. If you use Python, even as a beginner, this book will teach you practical ways to build your own machine learning solutions. With all the data available today, machine learning applications are limited only by your…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Machine Learning Reading

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

An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R

An Introduction to Statistical Learning provides an accessible overview of the field of statistical learning, an essential toolset for making sense of the vast and complex data sets that have emerged in fields ranging from biology to finance to marketing to astrophysics in the past twenty years.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Deep Learning

Deep learning is a form of machine learning that enables computers to learn from experience and understand the world in terms of a hierarchy of concepts. Because the computer gathers knowledge from experience, there is no need for a human computer operator to formally specify all the knowledge that the computer needs. The hierarchy of concepts allows the computer to learn complicated concepts …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Mathematics for Machine Learning

It starts from introductory calculus and then uses the matrices and vectors from the first course to look at data fitting. The third course, Dimensionality Reduction with Principal Component Analysis, uses the mathematics from the first two courses to compress high-dimensional data.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Elements of Statistical Learning

This book describes the important ideas in a variety of fields such as medicine, biology, finance, and marketing in a common conceptual framework. While the approach is statistical, the emphasis is on concepts rather than mathematics. Many examples are given, with a liberal use of colour graphics. It is a valuable resource for statisticians and anyone interested in data mining in science or in…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

AI and Machine Learning for Coders

Laurence Moroney's “AI and Machine Learning for Coders” is an invaluable guide for programmers looking to transition into the exciting world of AI. This book empowers readers to implement common AI scenarios such as computer vision, NLP, and sequence modeling by taking a practical, code-first approach.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading: Predictive Models to Extract Signals from Market and Alternative Data for Systematic Trading Strategies with Python

Key Features
Design, train, and evaluate machine learning algorithms that underpin automated trading strategies
Create a research and strategy development process to apply predictive modeling to trading decisions
Leverage NLP and deep learning to extract tradeable signals from market and alternative data
Book Description
The explosive growth of digital data has boosted the deman…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Specializations and Deeper Machine Learning Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. Machine Learning is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

Advanced Machine Learning with Python

Designed to take you on a guided tour of the most relevant and powerful machine learning techniques in use today by top data scientists, this book is just what you need to push your Python algorithms to maximum potential. Clear examples and detailed code samples demonstrate deep learning techniques, semi-supervised learning, and more - all whilst working with real-world applications that inclu…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Mastering Machine Learning on AWS

AWS is constantly driving new innovations that empower data scientists to explore a variety of machine learning (ML) cloud services. This book is your comprehensive reference for learning and implementing advanced ML algorithms in AWS cloud.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Probabilistic Machine Learning: Advanced Topics

An advanced counterpart to Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction, this high-level textbook provides researchers and graduate students detailed coverage of cutting-edge topics in machine learning, including deep generative modeling, graphical models, Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, and causality. This volume puts deep learning into a larger statistical context and unifies …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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

Augment your Machine Learning books

There is no better source of accountability and motivation than having a personal mentor. What used to be impossible to find is now just two clicks away! All mentors are vetted & hands-on!

Only 2 Spot Left

After 2 decades in Tech, leading software engineering teams at both Google, Microsoft, and studying coaching at Stanford, I would love to give back to the community, and spread my mentorship and coaching help to more engineers. Transforming someone's career and helping others unlock their true potentials, has been one …

$180 / month

Only 1 Spot Left

Hello there! 你好!はじめまして! I am a Tech Consultant and Senior Data Scientist, and previously a Tech Lead at the University of Chicago Urban Labs. I am passionate about leveraging technology to solve human problems, and have many years of experience in managing hiring processes for data professionals. I believe strongly …

$180 / month

Only 4 Spot Left

I have been a mentor for more than 2 years on MentorCruise and other online platforms. I find myself loving to help people with their first steps in the "ML journey". I have experience working with many state of the art algorithms in NLP. Using Transformer-based models such as BERT, …

$240 / month


Sunny Zhu refers to herself as the bridge between people and data and as a “statistics geek”. She has been engaged in a broad range of analytical works across diversified industries to empower companies to turn data insights into solid business decisions. Working for a decade in data analytics, she …

$180 / month

Only 2 Spot Left

I am an Engineering Manager at DoorDash, ex-Uber, ex-Google. I started my career as software engineer, and have been in the tech industry for 10+ years. Macro economy within the industry has changed overtime, whereas the key factors affecting career growth haven't changed much. I am happy to chat about …

$240 / month

Only 1 Spot Left

Hi mate! I'm Addy, I'm a software engineer @Booking.com and an interview engineer @Karat. I'm an ex software engineer @Amazon, @Microsoft, and @Wise. I have conducted over 2500 interviews for different companies on Karat, and I have been interviewed by over 500 companies in the last 10 years. I have …

$270 / month

Browse all Machine Learning mentors

Still not convinced? Don't just take our word for it

We've already delivered 1-on-1 mentorship to thousands of students, professionals, managers and executives. Even better, they've left an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for our mentors.

Find a Machine Learning mentor
  • "Naz is an amazing person and a wonderful mentor. She is supportive and knowledgeable with extensive practical experience. Having been a manager at Netflix, she also knows a ton about working with teams at scale. Highly recommended."

  • "Brandon has been supporting me with a software engineering job hunt and has provided amazing value with his industry knowledge, tips unique to my situation and support as I prepared for my interviews and applications."

  • "Sandrina helped me improve as an engineer. Looking back, I took a huge step, beyond my expectations."