The Statistical Imagination: Elementary statistics for the Social Sciences

I'm not a stat person and I'm taking it as a class. This book is key. I love it. It demystifies all of statistics and makes it easy for the layman to understand. Doesn't get much more clear than the Ritchey text and I'm happy I have it. I recommend this to anyone who needs a stat class or just a book on hand for whatever reason.

As a Sociology Ph.D. student without much (okay, ANY) background in statistics, I found myself struggling to keep up with what the hell my professor was going over in the classroom. The required textbook assumed I knew (much) more than I actually did and it seemed like I was the only one in the world who had no idea what terms like regression and correlation meant. What I needed was a solid textbook that would give me the skills and the confidence to catch me up to where my classmates were. Ritchey's style of presenting clear explanations and corresponding examples was invaluable in my understanding of the course concepts. The textbook seems more appropriate for undergrads than it does grad students, but that was the level where I was at so it suited me just fine. It is certainly feasible to read a few chapters in a sitting without feeling like you're experiencing statistical overload. This textbook would probably be best read by grad students about to take a stats course in order to hit the ground running...