When I saw this book advertised on Amazon back before the holidays, I quickly added it to my wish list. And I was incredibly disappointed when, after the NYC sister and her husband ordered it for me, it was backordered. I was so delighted the day it arrived about a week ago.
And I really wanted to rank this book as “Highly recommended! Don’t miss!” But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Because the only thing I can say is, I hope this was somehow rushed to press [though one of the charts in the book is a 4-page explanation of exactly how long it took to create the book, so that seems unlikely]. Because it’s riddled with errors — some small, and some more consequential.
In my case, the small ones are actually the more bothersome. Throughout the book, you’ll see two spaces randomly stuck in the middle of a sentence, kind of like this. I’m not sure the average reader will notice these, but I’ve proofread copy my entire adult life, and I can’t not see that dumb error. [I even notice when there are two spaces between sentences in printed works. Unlike what you learned in typing class in high school, one space is now the standard. It has to do with computer-based typography, but I won't bore you with further details.]
But the reviewers on Amazon point out that there are actually errors in the graphs as well, and for many people, that will be a bigger issue.
I would say, you’ll probably enjoy reading this, and you’ll learn a lot from the unique perspective McCandless brings to data visualization, but read carefully.
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