The Book of Circles

February 27, 2017
The humble circle gets its due in this visual study by Brazilian designer Lima (The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge), who specializes in the visualization of data. A taxonomy of circles introduces the book’s singular subject matter and provides its underlying structure. Chapters are organized around “Rings & Spirals,” “Wheels & Pies,” “Grids & Graticules,” “Ebbs & Flows,” “Shapes & Boundaries,” “Maps & Blueprints,” and “Nodes & Links.” This scheme offers the delightful opportunity for the “juxtaposition of seemingly disparate areas and time periods,” which the author correctly notes is “one of the unique aspects of this volume.” For example, a blue pie chart taken from a 2008 report confronts a “Diagram of the Nature of Planets” published in 1617. The book is light on discussion, but the visual evidence certainly suggests that humans have a fundamental affinity for organizing information in circular form. Color photos.