Arguably the best accessible book I have read on the topic. Lifts the kimono on statistics and how you can apply R to solve your statistical problems. I looking forward to getting through my doctorate with this close by.

This book is a terrific introduction to statistical (machine) learning. I purchased this book as preparation for graduate school where we would be studying statistical/machine learning and this book has helped me to be very confident in my understanding of the algorithms/math and concepts behind each of the methods. If you aren t well skilled in R the authors do offer a brief introduction to the language and they do explain everything very well. However I would recommend R in Action before or alongside this book to help you get you started. The authors have done an outstanding job of taking complex topics and making them very understandable and quite frankly enjoyable. It also gives end of chapter exercises to practice all concepts that are covered. As others have stated you can take the course for the book online. If you don t want to wait until the next course on the Stanford website opens up you can also use the link below for access to the youtube videos of the course lectures/powerpoints.http://www.r-bloggers.com/in-depth-introduction-to-machine-learning-in-15-hours-of-expert-videos/

This is a very good book for somebody who does not want to delve into the mathematics behind the algorithms. The book is concise and accessible. I found it very useful and practical especially to get a quick introduction or gist of a particular technique for interview purposes. It has R examples for almost everything discussed in the book. I am taking off one star as this book does not cover naive Bayes which is a very useful and popular algorithm. I am not sure why the authors left out such a popular and basic algorithm. Overall it s a great book.

written well excellent introduction. great for a self-learner. i have already learned so much from the first few chapters. looking forward to finishing the book.

The book was in great condition. Brand new even though I had ordered a used copy. Also the book is great for a nice start for traditional machine learning. Though you will have to help yourself to dig into more elaborate statistical explanations. It was worth it for me though.