This book by Roger D. Peng is a suggested reading for the Coursera’s Johns Hopkins University Data Science Specialization.
You can get it in electronic format from the Leanpub web site, for anywhere between free and 30 $. You decide how much you want to pay for it. The book is well written and flows quite well.
This is despite the fact that for a Java, C, Python, Pascal (etc) programmer R, at least at the beginning is a rather ugly and atypical language. A distinct advantage of the fact that the author is heavily involved in teaching the Data Science specialization courses is that for every chapter (actually even more often) there is a link to a youtube video like this that explains the relevant chapter or parts of it.
So, either you read the book, or you practically listen to it, which is kind of fun.
I have not yet finished reading it, it is not as comprehensive as the Python book by Joel Grus that I reviewed before, as Roger just drives you a complete overview of the language and then with snippets here and there (and a more consistent final chapter, with a real example) introduces the real purpose of R. Update: A few days ago a new version of the book was made available with a few updates, free of charge.
In fact, there is a second book, called Exploratory Data Analysis with R, which should cover more ground into the actual practical uses of R.
But the media experience more than make up for this. Either way, reading or listening, this book is a worthwhile investment if you are serious about learning the R language.
