Blogs: My Books 
I’ll try to review the books I’ve read, so it’s more than just a list of books
Statistics without tears by Derek Rowntree
I’m not good at sums. Never have been, it’s unlikely I ever will be.
I need to know about statistics for the old PhD. I was sent off to find a good book in Heffers that might be suitable to quickly teach me the basics of stats. I found Statistics without tears: an introduction for non-mathematicians by Derek Rowntree. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far, it seems very good. Rowntree promises I won’t have to do any calculations, and he’s about right. There’s a little bit of mental arithmetic to do, which I’m not that good at either, but it’s ok. The point is not to be able to do the scary equations that accompany statistics, but to understand the concepts behind them, which is much more important for someone like me. Of course, if you’re feeling sadistic, you might want to use another book after reading this one to find out how to do them!
Every so often, he asks you a question or two about the material he’s just presented. This is to make sure you get what he’s on about. He answers is straight after, so it’s advisable to cover that up with a piece of paper – these places are marked with a row of asterisks, so you know where not to look.
There’s lots of pictures and graphs to help you on the way, and he uses a slightly school-teachery-preachery tone now and again, but apart from that, I think I might just be able to understand statistics by the time I’ve finished the book. Which will be a first.