In today’s changing environment the hype seems to focus on new, updated, latest release, newly developed, cutting edge and so on. With so many new SAS books to choose from, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at our most popular backlist titles (books that were published more than one year ago). Below are three of my favorites.
The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Fourth Edition by Lora Delwiche and Susan Slaughter, July 2008 – The Little SAS Books have been best sellers since they first came on the scene back in April, 1995. This little wonder of a book contains the 20% of SAS that 80% of SAS programmers need to know. Whether you are a new or experienced user, your SAS bookshelf would be incomplete without this book.
SAS for Mixed Models, Second Edition by Drs. Ramon Littell, George Milliken, Walter Stroup, Russell Wolfinger, and Oliver Schabenberger, February 2006 – This distinguished group of authors give us a work that contains tons of statistical examples with real data. If you’re working with messy data, SAS for Mixed Models will do more for you in two hours than a week of reading standard statistical documentation.
Learning SAS by Example: A Programmer's Guide by Ron Cody, March 2007 – Written by one of our most respected authors, this title takes you through the common (non-statistical) procedures that you’ll face in SAS programming in a friendly and informative way. Reviewers say this book is great to use in preparation for the Base SAS Certification Exam. The ‘by example’ part helps you put into practice what you’ve read by giving you exercises at the end of each chapter.
I wonder, will any of these backlist titles be around for 50 years like J.D. Sallinger’s The Catcher in the Rye? What a classic. Can you guess what new SAS Press book will be our next best seller? In more modern publishing terms, backlist is now often referred to as ‘the long tail’. Whatever you call it, backlist or long tail, the above titles are just good, solid SAS books. I highly recommend these SAS Press classics!
What are some of your favorite classic SAS Press books? Share your comments here!
