Because You Should Use R

A colleague asked me about starting with R, which is not the easiest thing to do unless you know the ideas behind object-oriented programming (for instance, you don't open files, you load a spreadsheet or CSV into a data object, probably a dataframe -- this is not Excel or SPSS where you have the file open and staring you in the face).

I came up with a list of intro books I have so far found useful, besides help from friends and all of the awesome help online.

There are some good books by the publisher Springer, in its "Use R!" series and related books, with nice matching spines for if they are ever shelved (so far mine are all desk).

Also, here's a useful intro PDF a friend of mine put me onto, it's by John Verzani, if you prefer digital to paper.

Springer

A Beginner's Guide to R
www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Use-Alain-Zuur/dp/0387938362/

Introductory Statistics with R
http://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Statistics-R-Computing/dp/0387790535/

For graphing you will use the excellent ggplot (aka ggplot2) package.
ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis
www.amazon.com/ggplot2-Elegant-Graphics-Data-Analysis/dp/0387981403/

If you are an SPSS or SAS user, a Rosetta Stone:
http://www.amazon.com/SAS-SPSS-Users-Statistics-Computing/dp/1461406846/

Or if you are a Stata person instead:
http://www.amazon.com/R-Stata-Users-Statistics-Computing/dp/1441913173/


And some non-Springer books too.
I have liked both of these a great deal.

Using R for Introductory Statistics
http://www.amazon.com/Using-Introductory-Statistics-John-Verzani/dp/1584884509/


R in a Nutshell
http://www.amazon.com/Nutshell-Desktop-Quick-Reference-OReilly/dp/059680170X/

That should get you started!