Statistics by Freedman et al. All exercises use real data as cases, I learned a lot more from them!

https://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/0393...

I agree with this suggestion. It took me a year to slowly absorb the entire book of Statistics [0] including solving all exercises. It's just like walking to school but there is no external supervision. I made a rule to complete one chapter every evening including exercises and sticked to it.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/0393...

Yankoff, you might want to be more specific. Intro statistics in general, or for computer scientists, or scientists, or looking to learn R at the same time? I liked Freedman, Pisani, and Purves [1], and have TA'ed using McClave, Sincich, and Mendenhall [2]. You may want something a little more advanced than these, but they are pretty good for intro level.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/03939... [2]: http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-11th-Edition-Book-CD/dp/013... [3]: http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/421/what-book-would...

- "Statistics" by Freedman, Pisani, and Purves: http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/03939... (but an old edition would be fine)

- Any of Wainer's books (the author of the original pdf)

(Added later): books that explain the history of statistical thought are surprisingly good, because they explain the context and the problems the statistics were originally meant to solve. I really enjoyed "the lady tasting tea" and I think I learned from it.

You're talking college stats and calc. And even then Chicago and Stanford. It's like saying that Harvard's Math 55 should be the model for intro math courses in college.

I think the original poster was thinking high school and a target much more like Freedman's text (http://www.amazon.com/Statistics-4th-David-Freedman/dp/03939...).

And what Freedman's book does probably better than any other text in the field is teach how to think about statistics. It doesn't have a lot of formalisms, but if can come to an understanding of what he teaches in that book you'll have a rich understanding of stats.

With that said, if Calc was taught in the context of functions and probability, as in the Gemignani text then I think we'd be better off than how Calc today is focused around engineering.

I constantly read tons of business books. Some are pretty cheesy, some have lots of good insights buried in them. Good reads:

Emotional Intelligence (http://amzn.to/9LXV1x) The House Advantage (http://amzn.to/95VsAv) - full disclosure this is my friends book and Trada is mentioned in it but its a great look at using stats in business Statistics (http://amzn.to/bUZTcW) - oddly a great read