This is a problematic work that makes for a problematic review. 

It is messy with some good parts mixed in with less good. If you like Tufte, you'll find enough good parts. If you don't, or you haven't read any Tufte before, you should probably skip it. 

The book is designed on the spread. By which i mean each opening (2 pages, side by side) is designed as a whole unit. A topic is introduced, discussed, expanded upon, and brought to some sort of conclusion within the 2 pages. There are a few sections where a block of text continues from one page and carries on overleaf, but not very many. 

The effect is like reading a series of short essays, sometimes thematically linked, sometimes narratively linked, but quite often not so much. Occasionally i think the topic is just getting interesting, and turn to page to discover of course something completely different. 

Some parts of the book cohere more than others. 

The design is part of a philosophy of book publishing that Tufte outlines early on in this same book: namely that authors should have control over layout. I have read his first book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, so i see the positives on this point. But when is comes to making books, as opposed to the business of writing words, not all authors are capable of good design. And i have to say it, even good designers can have bad days making books (this one, or at least parts of it). 

Parts of the book are good. Well designed, coherent, thrusting an effective argument and narrative forwards. But other parts are incoherent, or contradictory. It's not enough to dismiss the book entirely, but neither does the whole form a compelling work. 

Reading it can be quite frustrating. Mostly because i think there is some good advice, and certainly some advice worth considering context. But it's not a good look to argue for more author control over publishing, and then have typos and paragraph layout mistakes. He writes about central axis typography (a pragraph with the lines centered, like some poetry), lists, and direct annotation; but then often fails to use them later in the book where i think they would help. 

A flawed gem, or possibly a diamond in the rough.