The bible on pattern recognition

I came across an excellent book on pattern recognition: Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition by Christopher M. Bishop. I've actually enjoyed reading this book thus far. While other books on the same topic have been overcomplicated with mathematics, this book simplifies the concepts with good wording alongside the required mathematics. An excellent reference in my opininion. For example, the 'Curse of dimensionality' is explained very well, much more so than any literature I've come across in my research.