Here are 31 books that The Real Work of Data Science fans have personally recommended if you like
The Real Work of Data Science.
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Hi, I’m Neil. We need to live our tiny, precious lives with intention. I write about failure, resilience, happiness, trust, and gratitude. I’m the New York Times bestselling author of 10 books and journals that have sold over 2,000,000 copies and spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists, including The Happiness Equation, Two-Minute Mornings, and You Are Awesome. I host the award-winning, ad-free, sponsor-free podcast 3 Books, where I’m on a 22-year quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world. Guests include Brené Brown, Quentin Tarantino, and David Sedaris. I give over 50 keynote speeches a year at places like Harvard, SXSW, and Microsoft.
If I were teaching a course on life, this would be a mandatory textbook. Talib defines black swan events as events that 1) are disproportionately huge, 2) cannot be predicted, and 3) are mistakenly explained in retrospect with hindsight and fallacies.
This book helped me leave my corporate job and strike out on my own. Why? To help unroll the canvas of myself and my life, so I was more exposed to black swan events, leading me to write more books and have more unlikely, amazing experiences.
The most influential book of the past seventy-five years: a groundbreaking exploration of everything we know about what we don’t know, now with a new section called “On Robustness and Fragility.”
A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’m a mathematics professor who ended up writing the internationally bestselling novel The Death of Vishnu (along with two follow-ups) and became better known as an author. For the past decade and a half, I’ve been using my storytelling skills to make mathematics more accessible (and enjoyable!) to a broad audience. Being a novelist has helped me look at mathematics in a new light, and realize the subject is not so much about the calculations feared by so many, but rather, about ideas. We can all enjoy such ideas, and thereby learn to understand, appreciate, and even love math.
A primary reason to love math is because of its usefulness. This book shows two sides of math’s applicability, since it is so ubiquitously used in various algorithms.
On the one hand, such usage can be good, because statistical inferences can make our life easier and enrich it. On the other, when these are not properly designed or monitored, it can lead to catastrophic consequences. Mathematics is a powerful force, as powerful as wind or fire, and needs to be harnessed just as carefully.
Cathy O’Neil’s message in this book spoke deeply to me, reminding me that I need to be always vigilant about the subject I love not being deployed carelessly.
'A manual for the 21st-century citizen... accessible, refreshingly critical, relevant and urgent' - Financial Times
'Fascinating and deeply disturbing' - Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian Books of the Year
In this New York Times bestseller, Cathy O'Neil, one of the first champions of algorithmic accountability, sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life -- and threaten to rip apart our social fabric.
We live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives - where we go to school, whether we get a loan, how much we pay for insurance - are being made…
As a professional statistician, I am naturally interested in AI and data science. However, in our current information age, everyone, in all segments of society, needs to understand the basics of AI and data science. These basics include such things as what these disciplines are, what they can contribute to society, and perhaps most importantly, what can go wrong. However, I have found that much of the literature on these topics is highly technical and beyond the reach of most readers. These books are specifically selected because they are readable by virtually everyone, and yet convey the key concepts needed to be data-literate in the 21st century. Enjoy!
This book, by Nate Silver of 538 fame, explains in a straightforward manner why so many predictions by “experts,” from weather forecasts to sports outcomes to election polling to economics, ultimately prove wrong.
It relates to understanding the “signal,” the underlying science that is often revealed through trends and patterns in data, relative to the “noise,” the random or unpredictable variations always present in data. Silver also explains the concept of conditional probability, probability when provided with some relevant information, in an unusually clear manner.
The book reads more like a casual conversation with the author, rather than a statistics textbook.
UPDATED FOR 2020 WITH A NEW PREFACE BY NATE SILVER
"One of the more momentous books of the decade." —The New York Times Book Review
Nate Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair’s breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger—all by the time he was thirty. He solidified his standing as the nation's foremost political forecaster with his near perfect prediction of the 2012 election. Silver is the founder and editor in chief of the website FiveThirtyEight.
Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction,…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
As a professional statistician, I am naturally interested in AI and data science. However, in our current information age, everyone, in all segments of society, needs to understand the basics of AI and data science. These basics include such things as what these disciplines are, what they can contribute to society, and perhaps most importantly, what can go wrong. However, I have found that much of the literature on these topics is highly technical and beyond the reach of most readers. These books are specifically selected because they are readable by virtually everyone, and yet convey the key concepts needed to be data-literate in the 21st century. Enjoy!
Books on AI often go to extremes, either promoting it as the solution to all the world’s problems, or depicting it as an evil that will destroy humanity.
This book is much more practical, and based on experience using AI in actual business applications. It is the result of considerable research, involving investigation of applications not only in silicon-valley, but from various business sectors, such as Airbus, Ping, Progressive Insurance, and Capital One Bank.
Don’t let the title fool you; this book is not simply a promotion of AI, but addresses the practical issues that have to be considered if success is to be achieved. For example, they argue that “the most important aspect in AI success is not machinery, but human leadership, behavior, and change.”
A fascinating look at the trailblazing companies using artificial intelligence to create new competitive advantage, from the author of the business classic, Competing on Analytics, and the head of Deloitte's US AI practice.
Though most organizations are placing modest bets on artificial intelligence, there is a world-class group of companies that are going all-in on the technology and radically transforming their products, processes, strategies, customer relationships, and cultures.
Though these organizations represent less than 1 percent of large companies, they are all high performers in their industries. They have better business…
I am an Australian who lives in France, and has worked and lived on three continents, and drawn inspiration for every location. Through this, I have developed a fascination about the way we all think in creatively different ways about the same things. All this cross-referencing has shown me that all responses to the need for change go better with a base of a few things: trust in your own people and those whose businesses support yours, discovery of assets hidden in plain sight, and fun. All these books share these themes. I hope they inspire you to think more creatively and to constantly value the value of values.
Although we value order and try to group things logically, one man’s logic is another man’s chaos.
I love the book because it challenges us to think about things we take for granted and the importance of discovery rather than finding. As Weinberger says: A topic is not a domain with edges. It is how passion focuses itself.
I agree absolutely that knowledge is not in our heads—but between us. Think of the white spaces on the org chart: that is where things happen.
Love this: Research shows that messiness begins within and to think without mess is to ”imagine thinking the way computers think—which is to say, to imagine not thinking at all.”
Business visionary and bestselling author David Weinberger charts how as business, politics, science, and media move online, the rules of the physical world - in which everything has a place - are upended. In the digital world, everything has its places, with transformative effects: Information is now a social asset and should be made public, for anyone to link, organize, and make more valuable; There's no such thing as "too much" information. More information gives people the hooks to find what they need; Messiness is a digital virtue, leading to new ideas, efficiency, and social knowledge; Authorities are less important…
I am a chemist (PhD University of Leuven, Belgium). This explains my preference for a rational approach. I was also an assessor for the European EFQM organization. This European Management Model allows an organization or company to achieve excellent results for all its stakeholders. One of the methods used is the Best Practice method. Finally, at the end of my career, I asked myself the question: How do we know that our country is well managed? There is no management model for this yet. That is why I developed a new model: the SAC model. Together with my colleague Grace L. Duffy, we have described this model in several papers.
I agree with the authors that there is sufficient knowledge in most companies, but that it is not or hardly used. Managers read books, follow training courses, get advice from consultants, etc., but they do not put these ideas and advice into practice. I was triggered by the question: “Why is so little knowledge converted into concrete actions that lead to measurable results?”
I was fascinated to discover the causes and remedies of these symptoms. There are multiple possible causes: teamwork, internal competition, leadership, fear, and rewards.
I found an original and powerful suggestion for translating a new idea from the book I read into concrete actions in my daily work.
Why are there so many gaps between what firms know they should do and what they actually do? Why do so many companies fail to implement the experience and insight they've worked so hard to acquire? The Knowing-Doing Gap is the first book to confront the challenge of turning knowledge about how to improve performance into actions that produce measurable results. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, well-known authors and teachers, identify the causes of the knowing-doing gap and explain how to close it. The message is clear--firms that turn knowledge into action avoid the "smart talk trap." Executives must use…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.
The Unicorn Project book picks up where The Phoenix Project book ended.
There is a new character introduced named Maxine, and I want to be Maxine when I grow up! Her character is brave, fun, and endlessly patient as she transforms the way they build software to more effective and productive methods.
She has a family, and life outside her org, which is something I feel all of us can relate to, balancing life and work. She really saves the day, over and over again, as the book proceeds to change, update, and improve every single thing they do within parts unlimited, the fictitious company in this story.
The Phoenix Project wowed over a half-million readers. Now comes the Wall Street Journal Bestselling The Unicorn Project!
"The Unicorn Project is amazing, and I loved it 100 times more than The Phoenix Project..."-FERNANDO CORNAGO, Senior Director Platform Engineering, Adidas
"Gene Kim does a masterful job of showing how ... the efforts of many create lasting business advantages for all."-DR. STEVEN SPEAR, author of The High-Velocity Edge, Sr. Lecturer at MIT, and principal of HVE LLC.
"The Unicorn Project is so clever, so good, so crazy enlightening!"--CORNELIA DAVIS, Vice President Of Technology at Pivotal Software, Inc., Author of Cloud Native…
I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.
This book is set in the same universe as The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, but it's at a new company named investments unlimited.
It's also a fictitious story, but with all brand new characters, and brand new problems! In this book they cover security much more deeply than any of the other previous books, talking about how compliance and audit can work together with the information security and DevOps teams.
They talk about common problems that I have faced in many organizations, and a lot of the stories feel so familiar I wonder if the authors have followed me around throughout my career.
Although of course they save the day in the end, there are many parts of the book where we're not quite sure if they're going to make it or not with various characters learning to see things in new ways, so that they can make…
In the vein of the bestselling The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, Investments Unlimited radically rethinks how organizations can handle the audit, compliance, and security of their software systems-even in highly regulated industries. By introducing concepts, tools, and ideas to reimagine governance, Investments Unlimited catalyzes a more humane way to enable high-velocity software delivery that is inherently more secure.
Investments Unlimited, Inc. has accomplished what many other firms in their industry have failed to do: they have successfully navigated the transition from legacy ways of working to the digital frontier. With the help of DevOps practices, Investments Unlimited delivers…
My grandfather was a labour activist in Hull in the UK and my father had many classic labour texts such as the book by Tressell, listed below. That got me interested in the world of work and later more specifically in managing people. I moved from studying economics to employment relations /human resource management. Given that most of us (workers) spend 80,000 hours of our lives at work - more time than we are likely to spend on any other activity during our lifetimes - how we spend these lives has remained a source of fascination
Much work on management talks of talent and people being the most important asset, whose ideas and skills should be fully utilized.
This book points to another side of organizations, where stupidity and idiocy reign despite the presence of smart workers (think of people who have important information to convey but are quiet at meetings as they are worried about not being seen as team players). This can help organisations in the short run (less conflict and everyone getting on with the job) but in the long run is problematic.
The authors point to how top-down management marginalizes critical voices and reinforces conformity to existing practices, and in so doing can embed stupidity.
Functional stupidity can be catastrophic. It can cause organisational collapse, financial meltdown and technical disaster. And there are countless, more everyday examples of organisations accepting the dubious, the absurd and the downright idiotic, from unsustainable management fads to the cult of leadership or an over-reliance on brand and image. And yet a dose of stupidity can be useful and produce good, short-term results: it can nurture harmony, encourage people to get on with the job and drive success. This is the stupidity paradox.
The Stupidity Paradox tackles head-on the pros and cons of functional stupidity. You'll discover what makes a…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I taught myself to code back in 1994 while working the graveyard shift as a geologist in the environmental industry. My job consisted of sitting in a chair during the dark hours of the night in a shopping center in Stockton, CA, watching another geologist take samples from wells in the parking lot. A friend of mine suggested I learn to code because I liked computers. I don’t mean to make this out to be a “it’s so simple anyone can do it!” You need to have a relentless drive to learn, which is why I wrote my book, The Imposter’s Handbook - as an active step to learning what I didn’t know I didn’t know.
There’s a section right at the start of this book where the author tries to quantify the value of things he’s learned over the years, and the result is startling.
Think about this for yourself, just in terms of the code you’ve written - how much do you think that’s worth? Your ability to learn things is your key to thriving in this industry, but how well can you recallthose things when you need to?
That’s the point of this whole book: learning to take notes and assemble them into your own personal database. This book led me to Obsidian, which I use relentlessly, and also to Notion, which I also use relentlessly. Writing things down gives me peace of mind and helps me focus and I highly recommend you do the same.
“One of my favorite books of the year. It completely reshaped how I think about information and how and why I take notes.” —Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive
A revolutionary approach to enhancing productivity, creating flow, and vastly increasing your ability to capture, remember, and benefit from the unprecedented amount of information all around us.
For the first time in history, we have instantaneous access to the world’s knowledge. There has never been a better time to learn, to contribute, and to improve ourselves. Yet, rather than feeling empowered, we are often left feeling overwhelmed by this constant influx…
