Setting Expectations
This review is an example of priming. The first time I learned of the book was when Ben Shneiderman mentioned it to me as we talked at IEEE VIS in Atlanta last year. In our conversation, he referred to it as “a coffee-table book.” I don’t think he did this on purpose, but that did set my expectations.
There are many similarities between The Book of Trees and Lima’s previous book, Visual Complexity, which I reviewed for Science two years ago . The major difference is that Lima doesn’t attempt the same taxonomy he did in Visual Complexity, and which ended up being mostly disappointing. There are also no over-the-top endorsements on the back of the book that promise way too much. The result is a book that feels more coherent and complete.