This blog post is a quick summary of the book “The Art of Statistics” written by David Spiegelhalter.

Have created mindmaps for some of the chapters in the book

Introduction

Getting things in proportion

Summarizing and Communicating Numbers

Populations and Measurement

What Causes What ?

Algorithms, Analysis and Prediction

Estimates, Intervals, Probability

Putting Probability and Statistics Together

Answering Questions and Claiming Discoveries

Learning from Experience the Bayesian Way

How things go wrong ?

How we can do statistics better ?

Takeaway

This book can be useful to anyone who is curious to know the importance of probability and statistics in our world. For a newbie who is starting his education in probability or statistics, this book serves as fantastic road map for the things he/she would learn in formal courses. The very fact that there is hardly any math in the entire book shows the book is very special. Look at the appendix of all the terms the author has mentioned, and then flip the pages to see there are hardly any math equations. The author has managed to convey most of the important statistical concepts without use of equations. That speaks volumes about the author’s ability to distill important concepts in plain English. If you are a seasoned practitioners such as data analysts, data engineers and data scientists, this book will provide many aha movements. I think this book gives the ability to verbalize many statistical concepts in simple words, a skill that is not seen in many people. You will find many people who can rattle off a bunch of statistical jargon but when asked ELI5(Explain like I am 5) about any probability or statistics concepts, they stumble and usually talk incoherently. In that sense, this book can be read multiple times to really internalize the key essence of all the main ideas mentioned in the book. A great next book to read after this is The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, written by Stephen Stigler. In this age where everyone needs to be data literate, this book is a great resource to become one.