andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-499 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: I was asked by Sophie Roell, an editor at The Browser , where every day they ask an expert in a field to recommend the top five books, not by them, in their subject. I was asked to recommend five books on how Americans vote. The trouble is that I’m really pretty unfamiliar with the academic literature of political science, but it seemed sort of inappropriate for a political scientist such as myself to recommend non-scholarly books that I like (for example, “Style vs. Substance” by George V. Higgins, “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” by James Loewen, “The Rascal King” by Jack Beatty, “Republican Party Reptile” by P. J. O’Rourke, and, of course, “All the King’s Men,” by Robert Penn Warren). I mean, what’s the point of that? Nobody needs me to recommend books like that. Instead, I moved sideways and asked if I could discuss five books on statistics instead. Roell said that would be fine, so I sent her a quick description, which appears below. The actual interview turned out much bett
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1 I was asked by Sophie Roell, an editor at The Browser , where every day they ask an expert in a field to recommend the top five books, not by them, in their subject. [sent-1, score-0.589]
2 I was asked to recommend five books on how Americans vote. [sent-2, score-0.94]
3 The trouble is that I’m really pretty unfamiliar with the academic literature of political science, but it seemed sort of inappropriate for a political scientist such as myself to recommend non-scholarly books that I like (for example, “Style vs. [sent-3, score-0.526]
4 Instead, I moved sideways and asked if I could discuss five books on statistics instead. [sent-10, score-0.845]
5 The interview includes the notorious hookah story, which should provoke a wince of recognition from anyone who’s ever served on an NIH panel. [sent-15, score-0.293]
6 Below is my original email; the full interview appears here . [sent-16, score-0.202]
7 I was originally asked for five books on how Americans vote. [sent-17, score-0.765]
8 I’m sure that five excellent books on that topic exist but I don’t know what they are, so instead I’m offering five books on statistics–broadly defined, since I don’t think your readers are looking for a bunch of graphs and equations. [sent-18, score-1.402]
9 He mixes in stories and goofy-statistics with in-depth analysis of questions such as, At what age are baseball players most productive, Which is more important: speed or power, and Are the Cubs hindered by playing so many day games? [sent-23, score-0.244]
10 When somebody asked him to do a study that he didn’t feel like doing, he replied, Hey, I’m not a public utility: if this is so important to you, do the analysis himself. [sent-24, score-0.149]
11 James’s abstracts went downhill after 1986–he started falling in love with his own voice and offering more opinions and less analysis–and he wisely discontinued the series two years later. [sent-25, score-0.45]
12 The best edited book ever (at least, in the nearly two thousand years since Matthew, Luke, and the others laid down their pens). [sent-28, score-0.283]
13 This collection of works on cognitive illusions (now sometimes called “behavioral economics,” but that’s misleading since economics is only one of the many many areas of applications of these ideas) is just amazing. [sent-29, score-0.226]
14 Chapter after chapter of incredible findings on anchoring and adjustment, overconfidence, the illusion of control, and other concepts that are absolutely essential to understanding how humans think. [sent-30, score-0.21]
15 How birds can keep themselves in the air, how dogs cool themselves by panting (no, it’s not as simple as you think), how elephants can be so large, and so forth. [sent-34, score-0.156]
16 And, like the other books on this list, a great read. [sent-37, score-0.351]
17 In any case, it’s one of my favorite books, and the chapters on Stingo’s moneymaking schemes have a fair amount of statistical content. [sent-45, score-0.227]
18 (You can’t talk about rainmaking without thinking about probability. [sent-46, score-0.16]
19 How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. [sent-48, score-0.57]
20 But the book seems great to me, and I recommend that every statistician read it. [sent-54, score-0.28]
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Introduction: I was asked by Sophie Roell, an editor at The Browser , where every day they ask an expert in a field to recommend the top five books, not by them, in their subject. I was asked to recommend five books on how Americans vote. The trouble is that I’m really pretty unfamiliar with the academic literature of political science, but it seemed sort of inappropriate for a political scientist such as myself to recommend non-scholarly books that I like (for example, “Style vs. Substance” by George V. Higgins, “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” by James Loewen, “The Rascal King” by Jack Beatty, “Republican Party Reptile” by P. J. O’Rourke, and, of course, “All the King’s Men,” by Robert Penn Warren). I mean, what’s the point of that? Nobody needs me to recommend books like that. Instead, I moved sideways and asked if I could discuss five books on statistics instead. Roell said that would be fine, so I sent her a quick description, which appears below. The actual interview turned out much bett
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Introduction: My 5books interview (from 2011), where we talk about The Bill James Baseball Abstracts, Judgment under Uncertainty, How Animals Work, The Honest Rainmaker, and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.
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Introduction: Eric Tassone writes: I [Tassone] had to Google “ Mary Rosh ” but remember that imbroglio now. Made my day, too. But really I wanted to write to ask you about something related to Bill James. I first encountered his works at age 13, when a baseball coach talked up his books and lent me one (that I fear I never returned). I then read his Abstracts from ’84 or ’85 until they went away, and then some of his other books in the ’90s. Anyway, my question is: Do you know if these works are available on a CD or DVD-ROM or the web something, like they do sometimes w/ collections like Mad Magazine or the New Yorker cartoons or whatever? Maybe through his website, to which I do not subscribe? (By the way, Google Books produces search results for the ’83-’87 editions, but at most just little clippings, not the full book or anything.) I wonder why we don’t see more of this, since the marginal cost of re-packaging and distributing already-created content for which there is at least some pent
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Introduction: Ben Lindbergh invited me to write an article for Baseball Prospectus. I first sent him this item on the differences between baseball and politics but he said it was too political for them. I then sent him this review of a book on baseball’s greatest fielders but he said they already had someone slotted to review that book. Then I sent him some reflections on the great Bill James and he published it ! If anybody out there knows Bill James, please send this on to him: I have some questions at the end that I’m curious about. Here’s how it begins: I read my first Bill James book in 1984, took my first statistics class in 1985, and began graduate study in statistics the next year. Besides giving me the opportunity to study with the best applied statistician of the late 20th century (Don Rubin) and the best theoretical statistician of the early 21st (Xiao-Li Meng), going to graduate school at Harvard in 1986 gave me the opportunity to sit in a basement room one evening that
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Introduction: Sophie Roell, who interviewed me for 5books (background here ), reports that 5books has become a book. Or, to be precise, that they have released a collection of the 5books interviews as an ebook . Interviewees include me, some people I’d never heard of, and a bunch of legitimate bigshots such as Ian McEwen and Steven Pinker. I’d say it’s fun and often unexpected bathroom reading, but then you’d need a book tablet (a “kindle”? What do you call these things generically?) in that special room. But then again, maybe you already do! P.S. You might be also interested in this list (from a few years ago). Comments are closed on that entry (I know there’s a way to get them unclosed but I can’t figure out how), so feel free to leave your comments/suggestions here if you want to opine on the best nonfiction books.
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