Book Review - Kieran Healy, Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction

With “Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction”, Kieran Healy delivers a hands-on masterclass in building effective data graphics using the ggplot package for the R language. While the implied audience is researchers in the social sciences, there is a lot of practical wisdom here for anyone who works with numerical data. This book treats both the theoretical principles of effective data visualisation design (in the mode of Edward Tufte, Stephen Few, Alberto Cairo and others) as well as concrete guidance on how to integrate such wisdom into a slick data analysis workflow in the R ecosystem. This practitioner-oriented approach is a very welcome addition to the literature: by covering both the whys and hows of data visualisation, this single volume swiftly equips researchers to build compelling graphics from their numerical data.