Dataviz for "My Ideal Bookshelf"

Fred sez, "My lady, Thessaly La Force, recently published a book with the artist Jane Mount called 'My Ideal Bookshelf.' In it, Thessaly interviews over 100 people and Jane paints their bookshelves. As I observed Jane and Thessaly compile the book over the last year, I couldn't help but think about all the fun opportunities I could have exploring the data behind the shelves. Each of the 101 contributors Thessaly interviewed picked as many books as they thought represented their ideal bookshelf, and I knew some of them would pick identical books. What would the most popular book be (it was Lolita)? On average, how many books did people choose? What would a taste graph linking contributors to each other using the books on their shelves look like? So I pulled the data together into a set of graphs an interactive 3D plot that visualizes the relationships of the contributors based on the books they choose."

The Data Behind My Ideal Bookshelf (Thanks, Fred!)

• [BarBarSeven]

  I wasn’t going to comment on this post, when suddenly this uber cool kid wearing sunglasses popped out of nowhere to attempt & coerce me into taking a survey. Say what?  

• [L_Mariachi]

  This reminds me of that photo project from about a year ago about “what do you carry on your person” or somesuch, which resulted in a lot of highly self-curated collections instead of actual pocket contents. It read almost as a shopping guide in a glossy magazine; “if you want to be like this person, keep your Moleskine notebook ($12) in your Chrome messenger bag ($140), which includes pockets for your Oliver Peoples eyeglasses ($300) and your iPhone 4S ($200 with 2-yr contract.)”  It says a lot about how the subjects would like to be perceived, without offering any contrast with how they actually perceive themselves or are perceived by others.  Lord knows there’s a lot of stuff on my shelves that I like a lot but wouldn’t put forth as representative of how cool I am (the Savage Sword of Conan anthologies leap out as an example. People have actually made negative comments about that one to my face.)

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    This reminds me of that photo project from about a year ago about “what do you carry on your person” or somesuch, which resulted in a lot of highly self-curated collections instead of actual pocket contents.

    The fact that nobody had a booger-crusted handkerchief gave it away.