The book under review is a greatly extended second edition of the well-received 2006 book. The size has almost doubled by adding 12 new chapters of which one is a former appendix, so that the second edition now contains 19 chapters divided into four parts.

The first part, ‘Traditional graphics’, and the second part ‘Grid graphics’, are mostly identical to those in the previous edition with the notable exception of an added chapter on ggplot2, which is a package applying Wilkinson’s Grammar of Graphics approach. Part three entitled ‘The graphics engine’ consists of two chapters: ‘Graphic formats’ and ‘Graphical parameters’. Both chapters are very helpful in preparing publication quality graphs, e.g. by explaining how to choose the right (file) format or altering elements such as line width or colour schemes. Particularly the pointers on founts and how to embed them are invaluable to everybody who ever created a portable document file and wondered why the print-out does not match the on-screen version. Part four contains eight chapters introducing a range of special packages or topics, e.g. geographical maps, node-and-edge graphs or dynamic and interactive graphics. Compared with the previous edition the appendix with a brief introduction to R is missing. A well-organized companion Web page contains the material to replicate all figures that are shown in the book.

Some of the topics, especially those in part four, could have been covered more extensively, but space restrictions may render this wishful thinking. In many ways, this book partly evolved from a textbook on how to make graphs in R into a reference on the graphic capabilities of R and where to find more specialized information for the task at hand. The book would also have profited from including colour figures to explain the professional use of colour better.

This (deliberately) is not a book on which graphs should be used to communicate specific information, which is a pity as the author might have much to teach about this topic as well. It also assumes at least some basic familiarity with R. As a textbook—and now also as a reference—on the technical aspects of making graphs, however, this edition is invaluable and a necessity for everyone who regularly has to produce graphs by using R.

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