One of my favorite websites to visit, FlowingData, has posted a review of the on-line book We Feel Fine by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar. The book is the product of an accompanying website, also called We Feel Fine, which explores the emotions found in blog posts. They do this by searching for phrases that the author puts in the blog posts, such as “I am feeling…”. They then take this information and perform some really nice data visualization on it. From FlowingData’s review:
As a supplement to the online artwork, which I’m a big fan of, the book works really well. It provides lots of good excerpts, and in the end, it’s entertaining. The best comparison I can think of is PostSecret. You know the blog/book that features secrets from anonymous people. Similarly, We Feel Fine is a snapshot of emotions from people you don’t know; however, even though they’re complete strangers, you will no doubt identify with many of them. Basically, if you like PostSecret, you’ll probably like this book. There’s a slightly greater data spin to it though, which of course I appreciate.
Anyways, you don’t really need to hear what I think. Just check out the entire book online and form your own opinion.
The physical book is available for purchase at Amazon for only $20.
via Review: We Feel Fine (the book) by Kamvar and Harris | FlowingData.
Thanks for pointing out the new book. You might want to check out my Visualisation References resource list, aspiring to be the most comprehensive on the net. If you miss anything that I might be able to find for you or if you yourself want to share a resource, please leave a comment.