Machine Learning: a Probabilistic Perspective by Murphy may be a better reference. Murphy has more up-to-date books. > Both are freely available online. Readin

Machine Learning: a Probabilistic Perspective by Murphy may be a better reference. Murphy has more up-to-date books. > Both are freely available online. Reading one book will get you to top 5% practitioners and reading both will get you to top 1% At which percentage do you start meeting math PhDs from top schools? You'll most probably never meet their level of understanding just by reading books or doing exercises. Having read Bishop, I don't have one tenth of the knowledge I'd need to do research at that level, you need more exposure than that.