Until journalism schools require that students take a course in probability and sadistics statistics—and find the special kind of people to teach those of us who are not naturally drawn to math-related subjects—most journalists will struggle with numbers.

There’s no dearth of statistics texts and other books that claim to be user-friendly and and serve not so much teach readers how to perform statistical analyses but to clearly explain them conceptually.

But damn few live up to that promise.

I just read in yesterday’s New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) that just such a book, published last year, is now available in paperback. It’s aptly titled Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data by Charles Wheelan. Continue reading →