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R Book Review

What books on R (the statistical programming language) should we purchase for our research work? What are the best books to get students up to speed with statistics and R? To find out, we obtained and reviewed 12 of the more popular general books on R (based on popularity at Amazon.com).

 

Here are our book selections (as of 2/3/2009):

Honorable Mentions: 

 

The review was conducted on February 3, 2009 by: Erle Ellis, Diann Prosser, Navneet Sushon, Junxi Wu, Jonathan Dandois, and Erica Antill. 

Here is the list of R books that we reviewed, with links to reviews of each:

(Ranks and prices at Amazon.com:)

  1. The R Book (2007) Michael J. Crawley; Hardcover; $88.00
  2. Introductory Statistics with R (2008) (Statistics and Computing)", Peter Dalgaard; Paperback; $48.36
  3. A Handbook of Statistical Analyses Using R (2006), Brian S. Everitt and Torsten Hothorn; Paperback; $47.65
  4. Data Manipulation with R (2008) (Use R)", Phil Spector; Paperback; $44.48
  5. Data Analysis and Graphics Using R: An Example-based Approach (2008), John Maindonald and John Braun; Hardcover; $68.80
  6. Using R for Introductory Statistics (2008), John Verzani; Hardcover; $39.96
  7. R Graphics (2005) (Computer Science and Data Analysis)", Paul Murrell; Hardcover; $63.96
  8. Statistics: An Introduction using R (2005),  Michael J. Crawley; Paperback; $43.97
  9. A First Course in Statistical Programming with R (2008), W. John Braun and Duncan J. Murdoch ; Paperback; $45.00
  10. Software for Data Analysis: Programming with R (2008), John M. Chambers; Hardcover $58.16
  11. R for SAS and SPSS Users (2008) by Robert A. Muenchen; Hardcover $74.95
  12. An Introduction to R (2002), W. N. Venables and D. M. Smith; Paperback; $13.57

*NOTE 1: As noted in the more detailed review, we recommend Braun & Murdoch book based on how readily it will help a statistically-savvy user get started with R. It is NOT a book that you will necessarily find useful after you are using R- it is NOT a good reference book, nor does it have much depth.  Nevertheless, we feel it has use if you just want a book that will get you using R quickly.  And, final word- none of us who reviewed the book actually decided to purchase it!  We reccommend getting from the library and then returning it!

NOTE 2: You can get a 20% discount on the list prices of most books in this review (except for Wiley) by ordering from the publisher using the discount codes at: http://www.r-project.org/doc/bib/R-books.html (Thanks to Gavin Simpson for this tip!)