As much as we love numbers for their straight-forwardness, power and influence in decision-making, they are also potential tools for misleading. There is a terror in numbers, says Darrel Huff in How to Lie with Statistics.

As an infographics artist, one might face numbers in several stages of her work:
- when collecting data;
- when organizing and interpreting data;
- when setting or finding correlations;
- when creating the graphic.

For any of the steps above, it is worth reading How to Lie with Statistics. It starts from the premise that statistics are often used to sensationalize, inflate and oversimplify. This is a book that teaches how to use statistics to deceive. If you are honest and responsible, read it in self-defense. If not, it means you already know the tricks.

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Nigel Holmes on Information Design (Working Biographies)
by Steven Heller 

"Nigel Holmes did not invent pictographs, but by using them the way they were originally intended he has created a vigorous graphic language that is now part of the public's visual vernacular. In the mid-1970s Holmes introduced an array of inventive new pictograms and ways to use them as key graphic elements in what he dubbed explanation graphics." (Heller in Introduction). Holmes worked for the Time Magazine, where he ultimately became Graphics Director. After sixteen years, he moved forward with his own company.

This book is a collection of questions and answers: Heller asks, Holmes responds. Holmes chose a conversational format rather than a continuous narrative to show his motivations and methodologies. It is a book for people who already know Holmes and can be helpful in understanding better the history of explanation graphics.