That is how the Boston Globe characterized Edward Tufte’s, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. I found myself engrossed in this book on a recent trip – read it cover to cover while flying from NC to NY and back. But this is not a book one reads just once. It is full of insightful thoughts about how to communicate. See Tufte’s web site for more.
Colliers Atlas Blog has a nice four-part series with reflections on a one-day course taught by Tufte in February (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV).
Next on my Tufte reading list is Visual Explanations. Or Envisioning Information. I can’t quite decide.
