Book: Making and Breaking the Grid (Rockport Publishers)

Among my favourites is this book by Tim Samara.
It gives really good examples on grid construction as well as grid deconstruction.
Some typical spreads:Picked it up at amazon.com.

Source of Knowledge: Graphic Design, A Concise History by Richard Hollis (Thames & Hudson)

As its title reveals, this book is a concise history of graphic design. In my opinion this is a very informative and very inspirational book. Unlike bad history books, this one is loaded with photos to accompany the texts, alas, with rather small B/W photos.
Actually we also had this book as a textbook at our graphic design history class at the university.
Some typical spreads include:I bought this from amazon.com.