In this blog, we will introduce you to the highly rated data science statistics books on Amazon. As you read the blog, you will find 5 books for beginners and 5 books for advanced-level experts. We will discuss what’s covered in each book and how it helps you to scale up your data science career.
Advanced statistics books for data science
1. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data – By Charles Wheelan
The book unfolds the underlying impact of statistics on our everyday life. It walks the readers through the power of data behind the news.
Mr. Wheelan begins the book with the classic Monty Hall problem. It is a famous, seemingly paradoxical problem using Bayes’ theorem in conditional probability. Moving on, the book separates the important ideas from the arcane technical details that can get in the way. The second part of the book interprets the role of descriptive statistics in crafting a meaningful summary of the underlying phenomenon of data.
Wheelan highlights the Gini Index to show how it represents the income distribution of the nation’s residents and is mostly used to measure inequality. The later part of the book clarifies key concepts such as correlation, inference, and regression analysis explaining how data is being manipulated in order to tackle thorny questions.
Wheelan’s concluding chapter is all about the amazing contribution that statistics will continue to make to solving the world’s most pressing problems, rather than a more reflective assessment of its strengths and weaknesses.
2. Bayesian Methods For Hackers – Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Inference, By Cameron Davidson-Pilon
We mostly learn Bayesian inference through intensely complex mathematical analyses that are also supported by artificial examples. This book comprehends Bayesian inference through probabilistic programming with the powerful PyMC language and the closely related Python tools NumPy, SciPy, and Matplotlib.
Davidson-Pilon focused on improving learners’ understanding of the motivations, applications, and challenges in Bayesian statistics and probabilistic programming. Moreover, this book brings a much-needed introduction to Bayesian methods targeted at practitioners.
Therefore, you can reap the most benefit from this book if you have a prior sound understanding of statistics. Knowing about prior and posterior probabilities will give an added advantage to the reader in building and training the first Bayesian model.
Read this blog if you want to learn in detail about statistical distributions
The second part of the book introduces the probabilistic programming library for Python through a series of detailed examples and intuitive explanations, with recent core developments and the popularity of the scientific stack in Python, PyMC is likely to become a core component soon enough.
PyMC does have dependencies to run, namely NumPy and (optionally) SciPy. To not limit the user, the examples in this book will rely only on PyMC, NumPy, SciPy, and Matplotlib. This book is filled with examples, figures, and Python code that make it easy to get started solving actual problems.
3. Practical Statistics for Data Scientists – By Peter Bruce and Andrew Bruce
This book is most beneficial for readers that have some basic understanding of R programming language and statistics.
The authors penned the important concepts to teach practical statistics in data science and covered data structures, datasets, random sampling, regression, descriptive statistics, probability, statistical experiments, and machine learning. The code is available in both Python and R. If an example code is offered with this book, you may use it in your programs and documentation.
The book defines the first step in any data science project that is exploring the data or data exploration. Exploratory data analysis is a comparatively new area of statistics. Classical statistics focused almost exclusively on inference, a sometimes-complex set of procedures for drawing conclusions about large populations based on small samples.
To apply the statistical concepts covered in this book, unstructured raw data must be processed and manipulated into a structured form—as it might emerge from a relational database—or be collected for a study.
4. Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Erwin Kreyszig
Advanced Engineering Mathematics is a textbook for advanced engineering and applied mathematics students. The book deals with the calculus of vectors, tensor and differential equations, partial differential equations, linear elasticity, nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory, and applications in engineering.
Advanced Engineering Mathematics is a textbook that focuses on the practical aspects of mathematics. It is an excellent book for those who are interested in learning about engineering and its role in society.
The book is divided into five sections: Differential Equations, Integral Equations, Differential Mathematics, Calculus, and Probability Theory. It also provides a basic introduction to linear algebra and matrix theory. This book can be used by students who want to study at the graduate level or for those who want to become engineers or scientists.
The text provides a self-contained introduction to advanced mathematical concepts and methods in applied mathematics. It covers topics such as integral calculus, partial differentiation, vector calculus and its applications to physics, Hamiltonian systems and their stability analysis, functional analysis, and classical mechanics and its applications to engineering problems.
The book includes a large number of problems at the end of each chapter that help students develop their understanding of the material covered in the chapter.
5. Computer Age Statistical Inference by Bradley Efron and Trevor Hastie
Computer Age Statistical Inference is a book aimed at data scientists who are looking to learn about the theory behind machine learning and statistical inference. The authors have taken a unique approach in this book, as they have not only introduced many different topics but have also included a few examples of how these ideas can be applied in practice.
The book starts off with an introduction to statistical inference and then progresses through chapters on linear regression models, logistic regression models, statistical model selection, and variable selection. There are several appendices that provide additional information on topics such as confidence intervals and variable importance. This book is great for anyone looking for an introduction to machine learning or statistics.
Computer Age Statistical Inference is a book that introduces students to the field of statistical inference in a modern computational setting. It covers topics such as Bayesian inference and nonparametric methods, which are essential for data science. In particular, this book focuses on Bayesian classification methods and their application to real-world problems.
It discusses how to develop models for continuous and discrete data, how to evaluate model performance, how to choose between parametric and nonparametric methods, how to incorporate prior distributions into your model, and much more.
5 Beginner level statistics books for data science
6. How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff
How to Lie with Statistics is one of the most influential books about statistical inference. It was first published in 1954 and has been translated into many languages. The book describes how to use statistics to make your most important decisions, like whether to buy a house, how much money to give to charity, and what kind of mortgage you should take out.
The book is intended for laymen, as it includes illustrations and some mathematical formulas. It’s full of interesting insights into how people can manipulate data to support their own agendas.
The book is still relevant today because it describes how people use statistics in their daily lives. It gives an understanding of the types of questions that are asked and how they are answered by statistical methods. The book also explains why some results seem more reliable than others.
The first half of the book discusses methods of making statistical claims (including how to make improper ones) and illustrates these using examples from real life. The second half provides a detailed explanation of the mathematics behind probability theory and statistics.
A common criticism of the book is that it focuses too much on what statisticians do rather than why they do it. This is true — but that’s part of its appeal!
7. Head-first Statistics: A Brain-Friendly Guide Book by Dawn Griffiths
If you are looking for a book that will help you understand the basics of statistics, then this is the perfect book for you. In this book, you will learn how to use data and make informed decisions based on your findings. You will also learn how to analyze data and draw conclusions from it.
This book is ideal for those who have already completed a course in statistics or have studied it in college. Griffiths has given an overview of the different types of statistical tests used in everyday life and provides examples of how to use them effectively.
The book starts off with an explanation of statistics, which includes topics such as sampling, probability, population and sample size, normal distribution and variation, confidence intervals, tests of hypotheses and correlation.
After this section, the book goes into more advanced topics such as regression analysis, hypothesis testing etc. There are also some chapters on data mining techniques like clustering and classification etc.
The author has explained each topic in detail for the readers who have little knowledge about statistics so they can follow along easily. The language used throughout this book is very clear and simple which makes it easy to understand even for beginners.
8. Think Stats By Allen B. Downey
Think Stats is a great book for students who want to learn more about statistics. The author, Allen Downey, uses simple examples and diagrams to explain the concepts behind each topic. This book is especially helpful for those who are new to mathematics or statistics because it is written in an easy-to-understand manner that even those with a high school degree can understand.
The book begins with an introduction to basic counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It then moves on to finding averages and making predictions about what will happen if one number changes. It also covers topics like randomness, sampling techniques, sampling distributions, and probability theory.
The author uses real-world examples throughout the book so that readers can see how these concepts apply to their own lives. He also includes exercises at the end of each chapter so that readers can practice what they’ve learned before moving on to the next section of the book.
This makes Think Stats an excellent resource for anyone looking for tips on improving their math skills or just wanting to brush up on some statistical basics!
9. An Introduction To Statistical Learning With Applications In R By Gareth James, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, and Robert Tibshirani
Statistical learning with applications in R is a guide to advanced statistical learning. It introduces modern machine learning techniques and their applications, including sequential decision-making, Gaussian mixture models, boosting, and genetic programming.
The book covers methods for supervised and unsupervised learning, as well as neural networks. The book also includes chapters on Bayesian statistics and deep learning.
It begins with a discussion of correlation and regression analysis, followed by Bayesian inference using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. The authors then discuss regularization techniques for regression models and introduce boosting algorithms.
This section concludes with an overview of neural networks and convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The remainder of the book deals with topics such as kernel methods, support vector machines (SVMs), regression trees (RTs), naive Bayes classifiers, Gaussian processes (GP), gradient ascent methods, and more.
This statistics book is recommended to researchers willing to learn about statistical machine learning but do not have the necessary expertise in mathematics or programming languages
10. Statistics in Plain English By Timothy C. Urdan
Statistics in Plain English is a writing guide for students of statistics. Timothy in his book covered basic concepts with examples and guidance for using statistical techniques in the real world. The book includes a glossary of terms, exercises (with solutions), and web resources.
The book begins by explaining the difference between descriptive statistics and inferential statistics, which are used to draw conclusions about data. It then covers basic vocabulary such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, and range. In Chapter 2, the author explains how to calculate sample sizes that are large enough to make accurate estimates.
In Chapters 3–5 he gives examples of how to use various kinds of data: census data on population density; survey data on attitudes toward various products; weather reports on temperature fluctuations; and sports scores from games played by teams over time periods ranging from minutes to seasons. He also shows how to use these data to estimate the parameters for models that explain behavior in these situations.
The last 3 chapters define the use of frequency distributions to answer questions about probability distributions such as whether there’s a significant difference between two possible outcomes or whether there’s a trend in a set of numbers over time or space
Which data science statistics books are you planning to get?
Build upon your statistical concepts and successfully step into the world of data science. Analyze your knowledge and choose the most suitable book for your career to enhance your data science skills. If you have any more suggestions for statistics books for data science, please share them with us in the comments below.
