Programming Books

33 Excellent Free Books to Learn all about R

Last Updated on November 23, 2023

The R language is the de facto standard among statisticians for the development of statistical software, and is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis. R is a modern dialect of S, one of several statistical programming languages designed at Bell Laboratories.

R is much more than a programming language. It’s an interactive suite of software facilities for data manipulation, calculation, and graphical display. R offers a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, …) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The ability to download and install R packages is a key factor which makes R an excellent language to learn. What else makes R awesome? Here’s a taster.

  • It’s free, open source, and available for every major platform. So anyone can repeat your work whatever platform they run.
  • A huge set of high quality packages for statistical modelling, machine learning, visualisation, and importing and manipulating data.
  • Cutting edge tools.
  • A suite of operators for calculations on arrays, in particular matrices.
  • Deep-seated language support for data analysis. This includes features likes missing values, data frames, and subsetting.
  • Powerful tools for communicating your results.
  • Produce publication-quality graphs, including mathematical symbols. Dynamic and interactive graphics are available through additional packages. R packages make it easy to produce HTML or PDF, and create interactive websites with Shiny, a sublime R package.
  • A strong foundation in functional programming. The ideas of functional programming are well suited to solving many of the challenges of data analysis. R provides a powerful and flexible toolkit which allows you to write concise yet descriptive code.
  • RStudio, a powerful integrated development environment.
  • Powerful metaprogramming facilities; a fantastic environment for interactive data analysis.
  • Connects to high-performance programming languages like C, Fortran, and C++.
  • An amazingly vibrant and helpful community.

Packages are the fundamental units of reproducible R code. They include reusable R functions, the documentation that describes how to use them, and sample data. The CRAN package repository hosts over 14,000 packages, and Bioconductor is home to over 1,600 packages.

This article recommends 29 free books which will teach you the basics of R, how to produce amazing plots, how to apply R to lots of disciplines, and how to efficiently program in R. Many of the books are open source.

If you’re new to R, we strongly recommend reading our interactive tutorial: Introduction to R and RStudio for Data Science. It focuses on a common task in data science: import a data set, manipulate its structure, and then visualise the data. We use R and RStudio to accomplish this task.


1. R for Data Science by Hadley Wickham & Garrett Grolemund

R-Data-ScienceR for Data Science is the ideal introductory text for learning about what R can do. In fact, we’d go as far to say it’s the best introductory book for budding R data scientists. It teaches you the basics learning good practices for writing and organizing your R code, and RStudio, a powerful IDE. The focus of this book is on exploration, not confirmation or formal inference.

If you’re looking to grasp how to make simple and elegant plots in R, learn how to transform data, and embark on some data analysis, this is definitely your starting text.

There’s particularly good coverage about data wrangling, and you’ll master the basics of data frames, data importing, and tidy data.

Hadley Wickham has graciously made this book available online. It’s released under an open source license. You’ll probably want to purchase the paperback version, the book is so good.

Read the book


2. Introduction to Data Science by Rafael A Irizarry

Introduction-Data-Science

This introductory book introduces concepts and skills that can help you tackle real-world data analysis challenges. It’s an exceptionally good read covering concepts from probability, statistical inference, linear regression and machine learning.

It also helps you develop skills such as R programming, data wrangling with dplyr, data visualization with ggplot2, algorithm building with caret, file organization with UNIX/Linux shell, version control with Git and GitHub, and reproducible document preparation with knitr and R markdown.

The book includes dozens of exercises to test whether you have understood the material.

It’s suggested price is $49.99, but the book can be downloaded without charge. And it’s released under an open source license.

Read the book


3. Hands-On Programming with R by Garrett Grolemund

Hands-On-Programming-with-RAs the title suggests, Hands-On Programming with R teaches you how to program in R. It’s expertly crafted. There’s hands-on examples in the book.

The book teaches you how to load data, assemble and disassemble data objects, navigate R’s environment system, write your own functions, and use all of R’s programming tools.

The book is released under an open source license.

Read the book


4. ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis by Hadley Wickham

ggplot2-elegant-graphics-data-analysisggplot2 is a widely acclaimed data visualization package for the statistical programming language R. The package lets you create new beautiful plots. We use ggplot2 extensively for our Group Tests charts.

ggplot2 was created by Hadley Wickham. So it’s not surprising that we recommend his ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis book. It expertly teaches you the elements of ggplot2’s grammar and how they fit together. This book helps you understand the theory that underpins ggplot2, and will help you create new types of graphic specifically tailored to your needs

You can grab the code and text behind the ggplot2 book. ggplot2’s reference website is a welcome resource once you’ve mastered the basics.

Read the book


5. Data Visualization: A practical introduction by Keiran Healy

Data-Visualization

Data Visualization: A practical introduction offers students and researchers a hands-on introduction to the principles and practice of data visualization. No knowledge of R is assumed.

Data Visualization builds the reader’s expertise in ggplot2, an excellent visualization library for the R programming language. Through a series of worked examples, this accessible primer then demonstrates how to create plots piece by piece, beginning with summaries of single variables and moving on to more complex graphics. Learn how to produce and refine plots. The worked examples are a real godsend.

Topics include plotting continuous and categorical variables; layering information on graphics; producing effective “small multiple” plots; grouping, summarizing, and transforming data for plotting; creating maps; working with the output of statistical models; and refining plots to make them more comprehensible.

Kieran Healy is associate professor of sociology at Duke University.

Read the book


Next page: Page 2 – R Graphics Cookbook and more books

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – R for Data Science and more books
Page 2 – R Graphics Cookbook and more books
Page 3 – Fundamentals of Data Visualization and more books
Page 4 – Data Analysis for the Life Sciences and more books
Page 5 – An Introduction To R and more books
Page 6 – Modern Statistics for Modern Biology and more books
Page 7 – A Little Book of R for Biomedical Statistics and more books


All books in this series:

Free Programming Books
AdaALGOL-like programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages
AgdaDependently typed functional language based on intuitionistic Type Theory
ArduinoInexpensive, flexible, open source microcontroller platform
AssemblyAs close to writing machine code without writing in pure hexadecimal
AwkVersatile language designed for pattern scanning and processing language
BashShell and command language; popular both as a shell and a scripting language
BASICBeginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
CGeneral-purpose, procedural, portable, high-level language
C++General-purpose, portable, free-form, multi-paradigm language
C#Combines the power and flexibility of C++ with the simplicity of Visual Basic
ClojureDialect of the Lisp programming language
ClojureScriptCompiler for Clojure that targets JavaScript
COBOLCommon Business-Oriented Language
CoffeeScriptTranscompiles into JavaScript inspired by Ruby, Python and Haskell
CoqDependently typed language similar to Agda, Idris, F* and others
CrystalGeneral-purpose, concurrent, multi-paradigm, object-oriented language
CSSCSS (Cascading Style Sheets) specifies a web page’s appearance
DGeneral-purpose systems programming language with a C-like syntax
DartClient-optimized language for fast apps on multiple platforms
DylanMulti-paradigm language supporting functional and object-oriented coding
ECMAScriptBest known as the language embedded in web browsers
EiffelObject-oriented language designed by Bertrand Meyer
ElixirRelatively new functional language running on the Erlang virtual machine
ErlangGeneral-purpose, concurrent, declarative, functional language
F#Uses functional, imperative, and object-oriented programming methods
FactorDynamic stack-based programming language
ForthImperative stack-based programming language
FortranThe first high-level language, using the first compiler
GoCompiled, statically typed programming language
GroovyPowerful, optionally typed and dynamic language
HaskellStandardized, general-purpose, polymorphically, statically typed language
HTMLHyperText Markup Language
IconWide variety of features for processing and presenting symbolic data
JArray programming language based primarily on APL
JavaGeneral-purpose, concurrent, class-based, object-oriented, high-level language
JavaScriptInterpreted, prototype-based, scripting language
JuliaHigh-level, high-performance language for technical computing
KotlinMore modern version of Java
LabVIEWDesigned to enable domain experts to build power systems quickly
LaTeXProfessional document preparation system and document markup language
LispUnique features - excellent to study programming constructs
LogoDialect of Lisp that features interactivity, modularity, extensibility
LuaDesigned as an embeddable scripting language
MarkdownPlain text formatting syntax designed to be easy-to-read and easy-to-write
Objective-CObject-oriented language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to C
OCamlThe main implementation of the Caml language
PascalImperative and procedural language designed in the late 1960s
PerlHigh-level, general-purpose, interpreted, scripting, dynamic language
PHPPHP has been at the helm of the web for many years
PostScriptInterpreted, stack-based and Turing complete language
PrologA general purpose, declarative, logic programming language
PureScriptSmall strongly, statically typed language compiling to JavaScript
PythonGeneral-purpose, structured, powerful language
QMLHierarchical declarative language for user interface layout - JSON-like syntax
RDe facto standard among statisticians and data analysts
RacketGeneral-purpose, object-oriented, multi-paradigm, functional language
RakuMember of the Perl family of programming languages
RubyGeneral purpose, scripting, structured, flexible, fully object-oriented language
RustIdeal for systems, embedded, and other performance critical code
ScalaModern, object-functional, multi-paradigm, Java-based language
SchemeA general-purpose, functional language descended from Lisp and Algol
ScratchVisual programming language designed for 8-16 year-old children
SQLAccess and manipulate data held in a relational database management system
Standard MLGeneral-purpose functional language characterized as "Lisp with types"
SwiftPowerful and intuitive general-purpose programming language
TclDynamic language based on concepts of Lisp, C, and Unix shells
TeXMarkup and programming language - create professional quality typeset text
TypeScriptStrict syntactical superset of JavaScript adding optional static typing
ValaObject-oriented language, syntactically similar to C#
VHDLHardware description language used in electronic design automation
VimLPowerful scripting language of the Vim editor
XMLRules for defining semantic tags describing structure ad meaning
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