data bookshelf

books that have have expanded how I think about data

Author

Simran Parwani
May 10, 2025

A disclaimer

Data viz can be an overwhelming space to navigate, there is always something new to learn! A question I often get from early career data viz folx is “what to learn next?” This post is not a roadmap for learning particular skills—there’s far smarter people out there with more specialized recommendations (Jacque Schrag’s web + data viz resource page or DatavizA11y’s GitHub immediately bubble to mind).

Instead, this page is an ongoing personal attempt to bring my bookmarked books and reflections in one space…the learnings that have expanded the way I think about data in some way.

Foundations

Living In Data by Jer Thorp

One of my favorite books in general, no need for the data viz adjective qualifier. I pick this up whenever I feel existential about my data viz practice…so at least a couple of times a year. Think gorgeous prose and profoundly self-aware reflections from someone who has lived through so much data, reminding us to think about data beyond what we see in the cell of a spreadsheet. What was that journey? What constructs and assumptions might an observation be an artifact of? How might we bring data back to the people and places from whom it is gathered (perhaps gathered is too nice of a way of putting it)? These are just some questions that swirl in my mind upon each rereading! [An aside: During my last existential spiral, I picked up Living In Data from my bookshelf and then impulsively enrolled in Jer’s birding x data viz course, reflections to come]

Data Feminism by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein

This book is a solid foundation for thinking more critically and equitably about data, so much so that the “Examine Power” chapter is the very first reading I ask my UVM students to read in our 10-week data storytelling course. Reading this book as an undergraduate computer science major pivoted my career landscape from tech to data journalism and I’ve come to think of the book’s specific action items as the bare minimum guiding principles for my work.

The Art of Insight by Alberto Cairo

Alberto Cairo is one of the kindest, most thoughtful people in data viz and this book reflects those qualities, immediately making me want to take a “Philosophy of data viz” course if such a thing existed. I read it for the first time from cover to cover when I got laid off from Axios—hearing from so many different data viz practitioners with such different backgrounds and ideologies was a soothing balm, filling me with possibility and hope for the future of data viz and my own practice.

Building Science Graphics by Jen Christiansen

An outstanding, practical visual primer to designing graphics that encode information. I love the way it explains gestalt principles and provides tangible visual examples of the lessons it imparts. Don’t skip the footnotes—I could get lost in the resource recommendations alone.

Photo of the books Data Feminism, Living in Data, the Art of Insight, and Building Science Graphics laid flat on a cushion.

the foundation books!

Books I revisit from time to time

Data Sketches by Nadieh Bremer and Shirley Wu

If you ask five data viz people who their inspiration is, I guarantee at least two will exclaim Nadieh Bremer or Shirley Wu! Before you statistics-minded humans come for me and say that the sample of people matters—yes, it surely does. While people who entered this field earlier might say Edward Tufte or Stephen Few and some in-between might say Giorgia Lupi, I feel lucky to enter the world of encoding data after Nadieh and Shirley who have made this field more creative and more human. Their December 2017 Bussed Out piece for The Guardian was my first exposure to the power of data viz to move an audience from understanding to empathy and was an inflection point in my journey in becoming a data journalist.

Data Sketches is a culmination of Nadieh and Shirley’s innovative work and generosity in sharing process. It shows the scribbles in the margins and the thought processes that go into data storytelling. If the $45ish book is not accessible to you at this time, Nadieh and Shirley kindly made their project writeups available on the book’s site.

Queer Data by Kevin Guyan

This book always reminds me that data is relational to its context—it’s a snapshot of how people felt in a moment in relation to where they were, to how they were asked, to who asked, to the positionality and presentation of who asked, to how they felt about the framing of the question, to how a researcher recorded their answer, to how that answer became categorized, and so many other shapings and power entrenchings. Furthermore, this book helps me reanchor “queer” as a verb, not an adjective.

Chart Spark by Alli Torban

This book has a lot of practical prompts for ideating and building creative rituals. I like flipping through it for the reminder that creativity is a practice of connecting the dots, but you also need to be intentional about building new nodes of inputs and forming new associations. I also love Alli’s “creativity mini-series” on her podcast Data Viz Today that was part of the research process for this book.

Visual-focused books for inspiration

Currently reading

Photo of the books Community Data and Diagrams of Power laid flat on a cushion.

Currently reading! (and wondering if I should add any parts of these books to my fall semester syllabus)

Excited to read

Other reading lists

If you’re looking for more specific book recommendations beyond “expanded my thinking in some way,” I do not blame you! Here are a few book lists related to data experiences: