A visual communicator's dream library

Over the past few months, I have been searching everywhere for the best books in the area of visual communication and information design. Some of the books are either out-of-print (sadly) or too expensive (have to draw the line sometimes -- $125 is not easy to swallow for a book). Libraries seem to have few books that are just right. I've seen several good lists along the way, and have been able to pick up some of the books here and there as the meager Visual Congruence budget would allow. If you have other books to suggest, please share them. If you are a publisher and would like to send a copy of a book that I can review in this blog, I'm game. These are in no particular order, and some could probably fit just as well in other categories. Enjoy...

Image & Style References
Running Press Cyclopedia
Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character, Warren Dotz, Masud Husain
Ultimate Visual Dictionary
Color Index, Jim Krause
Design Basics Index, Jim Krause
The Universal Phrase Book, Sterling Publishing
Future Perfect, Jim Heimann (for Taschen Icons)
The Order of Things, Barbara Ann Kipfer
Inspiration = Ideas, Petrula Vrontikas
Understanding Healthcare, Richard Saul Wurman
How To: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know Fully Illustrated, Jennifer McKnight-Trontz
Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works, Marshall Brain
Marshall Brain's More How Stuff Works, Marshall Brain
The Firefly Five Language Visual Dictionary, Corbeil & Archambault

Information Graphics
Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference, Robert Harris
Digital Diagrams, Trevor Boundford
Wordless Diagrams, Nigel Holmes
Visual Thesaurus, Goveia & Hatmaker
Information Graphics: Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design, Peter Wildbur & Michael Burke
Lingua Grafica: Major Reference Work for Image Language, Mutabor
Lingua Universalis: Global Wordless Understanding, Mutabor
Signs & Symbols (Pepin Press)

Packaging and Design Formats
How to Fold (Pepin Press)
Structual Package Designs (Pepin Press)
Mail It! (Pepin Press)

Information Design
Information Design Desk Reference, Christine Sevilla
Visual Function: An Introduction to Information Design, Paul Mijksenaar
Visual Literacy, Judith Wilde
Visual Literacy, Marcia Weaver
Information Dashboard Design, Stephen Few
Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See, Donald Hoffman
Graphic Discovery, Howard Wainer
Universal Principles of Design, Lidwell, Holden, Butler
Geometry of Design, Kimberly Elam
Show Me the Numbers, Stephen Few

Tufte (he gets his own category)
Visual Explanations, Edward Tufte
Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte

Very Cool Miscellany
Reinventing the Wheel, Jessica Helfand
Graphic Storytelling & Visual Narrative, Will Eisner
Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art, Jennifer New
You are Here: Personal Geographies & Other Maps of the Imagination, Katharine Harmon
How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier
Art/Design: Communicating Visually, Gilbert Clark and Enid Zimmerman
The Leader's Guide to Storytelling, Stephen Denning
Paper Prototyping, Carolyn Snyder
DeBono's Thinking Course, Edward deBono
Signs: Lettering in the Environment, Baines & Dixon

Visualization / Mapping
Mapping Inner Space: Learning and Teaching Visual Mapping, Nancy Margulies
Rapid Problem Solving with PostIt Notes, David Straker
The Mind Map Book, Tony Buzan
MindManager for Dummies, Hugh Cameron, Roger Voight
Mind Mpas at Work, Tony Buzan
Draw! A Visual Approach to Thinking, Learning & Communicating, Hanks & Belliston
Rapid Viz, Hanks & Belliston
The Big Book of Flip Charts, Robert William Lucas
Strategy Mapping, Kaplan & Norton
Thinking Visually, Malcolm Craig

Typography
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide, Ellen Lupton
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type, Kimberly Elam