When I was a student, the go-to textbook on statistics was Darrell Huff’s How To Lie With Statistics, and in many ways David Spiegelhalter’s book is a worthy successor. The Art of Statistics covers all the basics, including planning a study, through to the communication of results.

The topics are up-to-date including algorithms and analytics, probability, Bayesian theory,  randomized control trials, and reproducibility, fraud and presentation of statistics in media. The examples in the book are varied, relevant and up-to-date, covering a variety of issues including hospital admissions and operations, birth weights, baby names, university admissions, cancer recovery rates and many others.

This is a great introduction to statistics for someone new to the topic and a good reference book, even for those with much more experience.