It goes without saying that this one of the books you "must read" if you have anything to do with charts and graphs.<br><br>The book is wonderful as a selective romp through a history of graphics, and is correct in constantly hammering home the point that clarity in graphics is key, and that the ratio of data-ink to non-data-ink should be high (an interesting measure).<br><br>But significant parts of the book simply come across as eccentric, at best.<br><br>Tufte advocates data on a world map that nearly stretches around the world twice (p99) -- a little overlap is useful, but this goes far overboard.<br><br>He makes truly bizarre suggestions on using barely-visible line "offsets" and barely visible line-gaps to express quartile data (p124). I can barely make out the key information on his perfectly printed page, and can guarantee that any reproduction either by overhead projector or by Xerox would render his "preferred form" utterly useless. This section alone makes me question his judgment throughout the rest of the book.<br><br>And then his section on sparklines (pp 172-174) seems to be a jarring bit of self-promotion. He extolls their virtues, but I don't recall ever coming across them in print or on the web -- they just don't seem useful enough to warrant three enthusiastic pages in this book.<br><br>In sum, I'd say the main value in this book is as a beautiful compendium of varied graphical examples throughout history. In contrast, Tufte's analysis and recommendations seem overly wordy and at times misguided. I was honestly surprised -- from such a famous book, I was truly expecting more.