It's a great book, but my personal opinion is that it would have benefited from an editor that recommended some small changes. The previous edition had a TOC which was barely usable because all funny jokes in chapter names like "8 Conditional Manatees". Besides, there were too many jokes embedded in some sections, which made them difficult to follow. I think some of these issues are getting addressed in the current edition.
Nonetheless, the book is very well written and all figures and examples show great attention to detail. I found Gelman et al Regression and Other Stories better for teaching newcomers, and surprisingly insightful. Statistical Rethinking is a good choice for a second course, but perhaps too informal at that stage.
Related. Others?
Statistical Rethinking (2022 Edition) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29956390 - Jan 2022 (124 comments)
Statistical Rethinking [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29780550 - Jan 2022 (10 comments)
Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course Using R and Stan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20102950 - June 2019 (14 comments)
I'm excited to see the online lecture videos. I previously bought the book from a recommendation I saw online, and have been working through the chapters and doing the exercises in self-study. But I stalled a bit as some of the later chapters were harder to follow. I hope that the video lectures will help.
The videos are amazing. I watched the first season, and gave a glance at the second or third iteration, which somehow seem even better. He added one clutch visualization which really made a concept click for me.
I thought the book was only so-so, but required to support the nuances of what he discussed in class.