Visual Complexity is probably one of the more surprisingly enjoyable books I've received recently. And yet, it's rather quite unlike what I was expecting: and I say this as someone who had the book arrive in the mail with a large dose of "what the hell was this one?" Perhaps a symptom of getting carried away with book ordering and having to wait for them to arrive from overseas, but nevertheless.
The book is something of an overview of different ways of trying to extract meaning from vast amounts of data through visual presentation. The book shows how over time the forms employed have changed to suit the scale of the data being worked with.
One criticism I have seen is that given the amount of data on some of the graphs and the accompanying text, it is difficult to make out details of how the data is mapped. I'm not overly bothered by it myself, as it's not the specifics of any particular graph that I'm interested in, more the style used for presentation.
It's not going to teach you how to go about organising or analysing your data, but if you do have to deal with such things this book will show you the results of the myriad ways others have tackled similar problems.
All in all, recommended if you're looking for inspiration or pretty graphics.
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