The BUGS Book Reviews - MRC Biostatistics Unit

“MCMC freed Bayes from the shackles of conjugate priors and the curse of dimensionality; BUGS then brought MCMC-Bayes to the masses, yielding an astonishing explosion in the number, quality, and complexity of Bayesian inference over a vast array of application areas, from finance to medicine to data mining. The most anticipated applied Bayesian text of the last 20 years, The BUGS Book is like a wonderful album by an established rock supergroup: the pressure to deliver a high-quality product was enormous, but the authors have created a masterpiece well worth the wait. The book offers the perfect mix of basic probability calculus, Bayes and MCMC basics, an incredibly broad array of useful statistical models, and a BUGS tutorial and user manual complete with all the ‘tricks’ one would expect from the team that invented the language. BUGS is the dominant Bayesian software package of the post-MCMC era, and this book ensures it will remain so for years to come by providing accessible yet comprehensive instruction in its proper use. A must-own for any working applied statistical modeler”Bradley P. Carlin, Professor and Head of Division of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
“If a book has ever been so much desired in the world of statistics, it is for sure this one. … the tens of thousands of users of WinBUGS are indebted to the leading team of the BUGS project for having eventually succeeded in finalizing the writing of this book and for making sure that the long-held expectations are not dashed. … it reflects very well the aims and spirit of the BUGS project and is meant to be a manual ‘for anyone who would like to apply Bayesian methods to real-world problems.’ … strikes the right distance between advanced theory and pure practice. I especially like the numerous examples given in the successive chapters which always help readers to figure out what is going on and give them new ideas to improve their BUGS skills. … The BUGS Book is not only a major textbook on a topical subject, but it is also a mandatory one for all statisticians willing to learn and analyze data with Bayesian statistics at any level. It will be the companion and reference book for all users (beginners or advanced) of the BUGS software. I have no doubt it will meet the same success as BUGS and become very soon a classic in the literature of computational Bayesian statistics.”Jean-Louis Foulley. Full review published in Chance, also see Christian Robert’s blog.
“The strength of this book is that it gives a wealth of examples of how BUGS is applied in many varied situations… In this book the developers of BUGS reveal the power of the BUGS software and how it can be used in Bayesian statistical modelling and inference. Many people will find it very useful for self-learning or as a supplement for a Bayesian inference course.”William Bolstad. Full review in Australia and New Zealand Journal of Statistics
Review in Journal of Statistical Software (Joakim Ekström)
Customer reviews on amazon.com