Understanding Data. 2nd ed.

Charles R. Crawford, a mathematics and computer-programming consultant,
was an associate professor of Computer Science at York University.

Intended as a statistics text for students without a math background,
this book may also be of interest to members of the general public who
would like to feel as comfortable reading a table of numbers as they do
a paragraph of English. The writing is not too technical. The first two
chapters discuss how to organize numbers, but the first formula does not
appear until Chapter 3. The authors have carefully chosen examples in
which the numbers measure real things such as crime, illiteracy, and
suicide. The data are presented in such a way that the meaning of the
number does not get lost. Because this is a text, however, its style and
pace assume that an instructor is available to answer questions, assign
exercises, and apply pressure.

The book also makes use of a computer program, MINITAB, to illustrate
how the simple but tedious arithmetic can be easily and accurately done
using a computer. MINITAB is not included with the book, presumably
because an instructor can make it available to students. For the general
public, however, the references to computers are interesting but not
very useful. If the book were for the general public, I would expect to
find a discussion of how to do the calculations on a spreadsheet
program. Maybe the authors should consider a similar book for dataphobes
in the general public.