I've mentioned Edward Tufte's books here before; he has a new one out, and Kottke has some lovely notes about it. Interestingly, it seems to be something of a cult amongst the digerati, in the same sort of way that Moleskine notebooks are. As Kottke points out, however, that doesn't make it mainstream -- the book is self-published, and there are precious few reviews kicking around. My cursory inspection of Google turned up precisely none. Which is mildly frustrating, since amateur reviews tend to focus on how uncommonly beautiful the presentation is, making only passing reference to the content.
I've tried before to buy The Visual Display of Quantitative Information in the UK, and have failed miserably -- Amazon eventually cancelled my order -- and I have a sneaking fear that Beautiful Evidence may be in the same boat. It's an import job, it seems. When Tufte's book are available here, they tend to be sold at a spectacular markup.
Perhaps I should think to dropping the $150 for all four of his data visualisation books, and see how far 'postpaid' goes?
[update: hold the front page! IT specialists Holborn Books claim to have pretty much all of Tufte's ouvre in stock, at sensible prices -- there's even a section right on the front page of their site. They're in Hampshire, not Holborn, but I won't hold that against them.]
