" Rethinking the Power of Maps" by Denis Wood is follow up to the "Power of Maps" title. This book is all about taking apart mapping and cartography and looking at the assumptions that are made within a map, and how maps have been used with great power to define and give authority to states. It also, goes into how maps can be taken out of these roles of traditional authority and be use to empower minorities and make positive change.

I am a little over half-way through this book and am loving it. The first half was a bit dense as Wood goes into great depth about the assumptions, signifiers, authority, and power that maps have without specific effort. The second half is more of a set of examples and essays of how maps can and are being used to circumvent these situations of power that maps have been in for so long.

This book is a must for anyone that loves mapping and wants to understand how maps have become what they are in a historical and social context. It's kind of like reading a book about how food gets to your plate, but about maps.

"Else/Where: Mapping - New Cartographies of Networks and Territories" is by University of Minnesotas very own Janet Abrams and Peter Hall. I have just started this and am very excited about it.

Overall, this is not about "mapping" in the traditional sense, but more about how traditional map making and cartography has created a new sense of information visualization in our lives. It is a set of essays on various people and projects that "mapping" the data around us, but not necessarily in the sense of addresses and state boundaries. It includes mapping things like social networks, genomes, email conversations, government services, etc.

I think this book will provide a good insight into modern and artistic ways of visualizing and analyzing data.

Freakonomics takes a look at many varied topics through the eyes of a journalist and a non-traditional economist. The authors try to answer unlikely questions through narrative analysis as opposed to numbers and graphs. So far, so good; will write more when I finish.

Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design is pretty fantastic. I am just getting into it, but am learning a lot. It';s one of those things, where all the things that Jennifer is saying seems so obvious, but it's because she is so right on. The experts always make it look or sound easy. I am hoping this book will help me be more deliberate about the interfaces I get to design, and will probably shape this site a litt.e