For the past year, David McCandless has immersed himself in the story-telling possibilities of charts, and the fruit of those efforts--works he's done, and works contributed by a slew of all-star designers--are now collected in The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia ($27). Here's a peek inside the book, which went on sale this past Tuesday.

Here's a graph by McCandless, showing the various religions and belief systems, and where the fit on a continuum between absolute creationism and absolute scientific materialism...

...a detail of the graph. The size of the circle corresponds to the approximate number of adherents.

Another spectrum, this time of political beliefs, by David McCandless and information artist Stefanie Posavec...

...the left is outlined in blue; the right is outlined in red. (Full-size version here.)

Mountains Out of Molehills, which graphs media mentions for popular scare stories, such as bird flu or videogame violence.

Detail. (Full-size version here.)

A map of colors popular in women's clothing, gathered from fashion publications.

The Media Jungle, a map of the world's biggest media properties, and the companies that own them...

...the size of the bubbles indicates revenues; the height of the stalks indicates the audience of the media outlet.