[zellyn]

This really drives home how scattershot organizing books by publisher is. Try searching for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and clicking on each of the results in turn: they're nowhere near each other.

Or try "That Hideous Strength" by "C.S. Lewis" vs "Clive Stables Lewis", and suddenly you're arcing across a huge linear separation.

Still, given that that's what we use, this visualization is lovely. Imagine if you could open every book and read it…

[Finnucane]

Why would you expect otherwise? Titles are assigned ISBNs by publishers as they are being published. Books published simultaneously as a set might have sequential numbers, but otherwise not. Books separated by a year or more are not going to have related numbers. It's an inventory tracking mechanism, it has no other meaning.