Information is Beautiful – Books you must read

Some time ago, we brought you a TedTalk by David McCandless on how he visualises information in an attempt to find “hidden” patterns. Well, he’s also the founder of http://www.informationisbeautiful.net, where you can find many of his own examples and others from around the internet. For example, this one about the thorny subject of classics that everyone should read.

Do Top 100 Books polls and charts agree on a set of classics? I scraped the results of over 15 notable book polls, readers surveys and top 100′s. Both popular and high-brow. They included all Pulitzer Prize winners, Desert Island Discs choices from recent years, Oprah‘s Bookclub list, and, of course, The Guardian‘s Top 100 Books of All Time. A simple frequency analysis on the gathered titles gives us a neat ‘consensus cloud’ visualisation of the most mentioned books titles across the polls. Do you agree with the consensus?

Strange Random Book Quote:

To choose a good book, look in an inquisitor’s prohibited list. – John Aikin

 

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