Machine Learning: An Algorithmic Perspective (Chapman Hall/Crc Machine Learning Pattern Recognition)

... liberally illustrated with many programming examples, using Python. It includes a basic primer on Python and has an accompanying website.
It has excellent breadth, and is comprehensive in terms of the topics it covers, both in terms of methods and in terms of concepts and theory. ...
I think the author has succeeded in his aim: the book provides an accessible introduction to machine learning. It would be excellent as a first exposure to the subject, and would put the various ideas in context ...
This book also includes the first occurrence I have seen in print of a reference to a zettabyte of data (1021 bytes) ― a reference to "all the world’s computers" being estimated to contain almost a zettabyte by 2010.
―David J. Hand, International Statistical Review (2010), 78

If you are interested in learning enough AI to understand the sort of new techniques being introduced into Web 2 applications, then this is a good place to start. ... it covers the subject matter of many an introductory course on AI and it has references to the source material and further reading but it is written in a fairly casual style. Overall it works and much of the mathematics is explained in ways that make it fairly clear what is going on ... . This is a suitable introduction to AI if you are studying the subject on your own and it would make a good course text for an introduction and overview of AI.
―I-Programmer, November 2009