Unfancily useful info viz

oSkope many views are a nice, rich way to browse Amazon (for other engines it isn’t nearly as successful) but this simple diagram in particular — plotting book covers against price and sales rank— is genuinely useful. Shame there’s no option to choose your axes. How about price vs stars? Stars vs. length?

Apropos of trusty old Cartesian planes, ain’t it weird they weren’t with us 500 years ago? What could be more straightforward than a coordinate system?