Getting Started with D3: Creating Data-Driven Documents

I'm not sure who this book is pitched to - maybe it resonates with people who already have a pretty good knowledge of JavaScript. For complete newbies, or people at level 1.1 noob, it feels really scattered and mostly baffling. I found Interactive Data Visualization for the Web a lot friendlier - and richer, in terms of both explanations and resources for further study.

One (pretty big) plus point, to Mike Dewar's credit, is his hands-on example using the New York City subway. I sometimes complain about the examples used in code tutorials (they skew heavily towards the interests of middle-aged white dudes - e.g. program a poker game! replicate Pong!), and I appreciated something that was: (1) civics-ish, (2) urban design-y, and (3) with a lot of depth (there are so many questions one could ask about the New York City subway, amirite?).