It’s hard to imagine that we’re only a couple weeks off from the end of the year. Despite the confines of working from home, it’s been another busy year with lots of praise and recognition for the work we’ve produced. As we all take some time off at the end of the year, I wanted to encourage you all to reflect on your year from a data viz perspective, think about your accomplishments and what you’d like to improve upon in 2022. With that in mind, find some time during your break to visit the library and find a book that speaks to this. I have a few suggestions to help get you going.

Do you want to understand the principles of data visualization? Try picking up Abert Cairo’s The Functional Art, Nathan Yau’s VIsualize This, or Isabel Meirelles’ Design for Information.

Do you want to aid your Excel data viz skills? Try picking up Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic’s Storytelling With Data or Stephanie Evergreen’s Presenting Data Effectively.

Do you want to further your Tableau skills? Try picking up Steve Wexler et al’s The Big Book of Dashboards.

Do you want to grasp UX/UI to improve your dashboards? Try picking up Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things.

Do you want to learn the fundamentals from an R perspective? Try picking up Claus O Wilke’s Fundamentals of Data Visualization or Kieran Healy’s Data Visualization.

Do you want your presentations to shine in 2022? Try picking up Jon Schwabish’s Better Presentations or Garr Reynolds’s Presentatin Zen.

Do you just want some inspiration? Try picking up RJ Andrew’s Info We Trust, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec’ Dear Data, or David McCandless’s Information is Beautiful.

These are just a few examples of some great books to get you going. Do you have any others that you would recommend?

Happy plotting!