Top Statistics 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 Statistics books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Statistics

Understanding the concepts of Statistics 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.

An Introduction to Statistical Learning: With Applications in R

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. This book presents some of the most important modeling and prediction techniques, along with relevant applications. Topics include linear regression, classification, resampling methods, shrinkage approaches, tree-based met…

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Bayesian Data Analysis (Chapman & Hall/CRC Texts in Statistical Science)

Now in its third edition, this classic book is widely considered the leading text on Bayesian methods, lauded for its accessible, practical approach to analyzing data and solving research problems. Bayesian Data Analysis, Third Edition continues to take an applied approach to analysis using up-to-date Bayesian methods. The authors―all leaders in the statistics community―introduce basic concept…

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You Are Not So Smart

Whether you’re deciding which smartphone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic. But here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us—but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human. Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals…

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Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models

Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models is a comprehensive manual for the applied researcher who wants to perform data analysis using linear and nonlinear regression and multilevel models. The book introduces a wide variety of models, whilst at the same time instructing the reader in how to fit these models using available software packages. The book illustrates the c…

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Statistics

Drawing upon over 40 years of experience, the authors of Statistics, 11th Edition provide business professionals with a clear and methodical approach to essential statistical procedures. The text clearly explains the basic concepts and procedures of descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. It features an emphasis on expressions involving sums of squares and degrees of freedom as well …

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Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will …

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Additional Statistics Reading

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

The Black Swan

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, fr…

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An Introduction to Statistical Learning: with Applications in Python (Springer Texts in Statistics)

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, marketing, and astrophysics in the past twenty years. This book presents some of the most important modeling and prediction techniques, along with releva…

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How to Lie with Statistics

Darrell Huff runs the gamut of every popularly used type of statistic, probes such things as the sample study, the tabulation method, the interview technique, or the way the results are derived from the figures, and points up the countless number of dodges which are used to full rather than to inform.

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Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

This is the first textbook on pattern recognition to present the Bayesian viewpoint. The book presents approximate inference algorithms that permit fast approximate answers in situations where exact answers are not feasible. It uses graphical models to describe probability distributions when no other books apply graphical models to machine learning. No previous knowledge of pattern recognition…

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Pre-Algebra QuickStudy Laminated Reference Guide (QuickStudy Academic)

Boost grades and the understanding of early algebra concepts that can make or break the long-term study of algebra through middle and high school and on to college. Textbooks and classes cover so much over months at a time that the details at different stages of learning are passed up with expectations of students remembering all the details of every stage of learning. This 6 page laminated re…

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