Tufte, a world-famous expert in "Information Design" explains the sad state of the charts and graphs that inhabit our world. It is a wonderful book and a joy to read. Tufte is extremely concise, and fills his pages with examples taken from real life.
Sadly, too many students are given these tools but are not informed in their proper use. This is what is responsible for the dreadful quality of most graphical information in today's world.
Tufte also discusses much of Tukey's work. Tukey is the inventor of the stem and leaf plot as well as the box and whiskers graph. He also was the one who coined the term "bit", representing Binary digIT. Tufte improves on many of Tukey's plots and charts, presenting them in a more thoughtful and effective way.
If you like it, Tufte also has written @@ two sequels, which are just as good (but not as focused on numbers -- one is on nouns and the other is on verbs).
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