The fourth of Tufte's series of books on the visual display of information. It is the most eccentric of the series and includes a moderate amount of recycled material from the previous volumes. There is remarkable vitriol in an amount that I think you can only see in a self-published book, with an illustrated non-anonymized attack on one economics professor's book, and a prolonged attack on Microsoft Powerpoint that refers to Stalin more than once. There are also, of course, many interesting things, e.g. some discussion of Conway's Law. The book ends with a very odd criticism of some works of landscape architecture, and then photographs of some of the author's sculptures. ( )

All of Tufte's work should be required reading in high school. ( )

A book that rewards close reading. ( )

It is just possible that if I can't understand it, it is poorly written. The diatribe against the abuse of bullet points in PowerPoint presentations, however, is funny and must be right. ( )

The first of this series of books by Edward Tufte, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" was the one that, in my opinion, would be of most practical use to the average scientist. That was six volumes and twenty four years ago. I would recommend the most recent one, "Beautiful Information", as a logical continuation. In it, he provides ideas for annotating and enhancing information in photographs, the use of "sparklines" to highlight tabular data, the use of links and causal arrows, the proper combination of numbers and images, a reprise of the principles of the first volume in a chapter entitled "The Fundamental Principles of Analytical Design", and a criticism of substandard arguments and faulty presentations in "Corruption in Evidence Presentations: Effects without Causes, Cherry-Picking, Overreaching, Chartjunk, and the Rage to Conclude". This is a beautiful book (as are all of the others) with high-quality color reproductions of inventive and economical depictions of data and concepts. Tufte has himself quite a racket. He publishes his own books (Graphics Press LLC) which he sells at relatively high prices (but justified by their production values). These provide grist for his relatively expensive seminars for graphic designers. If you can't get to (or afford) one of his design seminars, you can profit by his books. Also, be sure to visit the lively online forums linked from his Web site. ( )