Visualizing Data: Psychology and Analytics - Exploring, Explaining and Storytelling (Paperback)

The clearest explanation of data visualization I have come across.

I came to this book already familiar with the basics, and it still had plenty to offer. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The book rewards careful reading. Skimming it would be a mistake. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with data visualization.

This is the one to get if you are serious about data visualization.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. The explanations are careful without being condescending, which is a difficult balance to strike. The index and cross-references are surprisingly good, which matters for a book I will come back to. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. If you have the prerequisites, this is an easy recommendation. I will be keeping it on my desk rather than the shelf.

A useful guide. The examples assume a particular environment, but that is fixable.

This is the third book I have read on data visualization this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. I appreciated the honesty about what the book does not cover — it saved me from expecting things that were not there. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.