A good number of the books published by Hyphen Press are set unjustified, including Unjustified texts: perspectives on typography by Robin Kinross.

Related: for simulating the show-through-effect in InDesign, check out Georg Seifert’s script, available from detailtypografie.de (scroll down to Durchscheinen und Bundschatten, not tested with CS4/5).

Eric Gill's Essay on Typography both argues for, and exemplifies, unjustified text.

All books I designed and/or set up to now were unjustified, is that something so exceptional?
Most important: what language will it be set it? Cos in German you really have to work on good (and generous) hyphenation whereas in English some suggest to rather not have any at all.
Second most importantly: mind the paragraph composer or Indesign in general. Good for fast graphic design, but if you have a clear idea of how you want your lines to break and hyphenation it drives you nuts.
Well, don't get me started—I am very passionate about »Umbruch machen«, line breaks, hyphenation, avoidance of »staircases« and other unintended forms of your »Satzkante« (seems we should move this discussion to a German speaking playground, I am missing the important English terms).

»staircases« = rivers

Not sure whether the “staircases” I meant are called rivers in English (we call accumulating huge word spaces in justified text rivers, or rather creeks). I was referring to the form of the ragged right edge. I like to avoid any kind of strange, distracting shapes forming there, like staircases, triangle, holes and peaks etc.

Also try toprevent small words, or hyphenated parts from falling down at the end of a line. If there is no word under it in the line below, take it down into the next one. Best work with non-breaking word spaces here so that the line break vanishes when the text shall flows differently after a correction or something. Better not hyphenate after or before just two letters, at least not automatically. You can add those manually at places where you need them to elude a big hole.
And last not least my favourite: avoid what (I think) Hochuli once called the swiss-erization of set text—hyphenation after ...li-

Hey thanks. (Also for pointing out those scripts, Florian!)

"is that something so exceptional?"

That must depend on context I guess. I've mainly done novels and academic books so far, where rag-right would have been like, you want to do WHAT? :-)

And, yes, it will be German. Actually Swiss orthography (which probably means extra caution about the «li»! :-). I'm quite into working on a nice rag too (just haven't done it in books, where I am extra-wondering about things like the see-through effect, and extra-worrying that it has to look really nice). I like it to «oscillate» nicely (and I would back an introduction of certain German terms into English! Like «Flattersatz»). BTW, I do expect this will probably take more time than setting nice justified text.

It might be best to switch off hyphenation (and switch to the Single-Line Composer) and work entirely manually yes?

Absolutely no worries, Nina. It doesn't take more time, nor do you have to be concerned about see-through issues unless you have really thin paper (what you probably won't have in a novel or the like). Just make sure you set the text registerhaltig (see, another one ... maybe I should switch to English in my layout programs to teach me) and that there isn't a major Flatterzone. If you want to have like a 10 mm margin left and right you should set the ragging right one to a smaller measure to optically fit. But it depends on how good you succeed in making the edge harmonious and even.

But, to save time, you should work with automated hyphenation switched on (take care of the settings!) and yes, single-line-composer, though even he won't do what you want in many annoying instances. Then go along the edge and check the hyphenations and manually adjust for better breaks (no hard hyphens), undo unpleasant ones, wrap small words or parts to the next line etc.
Working manually is possible also, but really time consuming for longer text, and you have to read a good part of it to hyphenate appropriately.

"registerhaltig"

I'm definitely using a baseline grid.

"maybe I should switch to English in my layout programs to teach me"

FWIW this is the main reason why my OS and all my software are in English. :)

"If you want to have like a 10 mm margin left and right you should set the ragging right one to a smaller measure to optically fit."

Oo. Thanks. This is actually one major thing I was wondering about.
Because if say on a left page I have the inner margin (where the rag is) smaller than it is on the preceding right page (where there's a hard «line»/Kante), wouldn't that look funny with the see-through?
I have clearly not seen enough books set this way. :-\
Hey, can you point out a couple of books you've done? It'd be nice to have some hands-on examples.

"Working manually is possible also, but really time consuming for longer text, and you have to read a good part of it to hyphenate appropriately."

I always read the text I set. (And I always take more time than is reasonable. :-)

Well, the margin thing depends on how big they are in general and how much you adjust them. It's more for the optical evening out so you shouldn't have whole words hanging over. But otherwise the hard line from the other side could look quite far away. I just do it like this:

Still I don't think this is going to me a major issue, the paper won't be that thin. Also people are used to see things shine through a bit from the other side, they won't hate the book just because of that. Not meeting the baseline grid is far far more disturbing.
And keep in mind that the printer still can spoil every noch so carefully thought out positioning :)

((Ah, books: Well, I did a lot of text-heavy books for Rowohlt et al you don't want to know about (baby care, popular science, lifestyle crap, sports, song books :) It's hard to come up with some titles—the architecture books and artist catalogues I do don't really have long columns of text, Helvetica Forever I didn't typeset and my type-book has an asymmetric layout, the Puutikkala book will be impossible to find for you, so will be Dein Land macht Kunst and Decorum I’m afraid.))

is that something so exceptional?

It seems so. Hans Andree calls justified text ‘the last relic of Gutenberg’; see his article in Mittelweg 36, 3/2002 [German].

single-line-composer, though even he won't do what you want
Of course, something that doesn’t do what you want has to be male! ;-)

FWIW:
In German, rivers are Gießbäche/Gießbächlein [streamlets] or, more commonly, Gassen [alleyways]
Satzkante is the (optical) margin, den Umbruch machen is making-up (the type/text) into pages.

Is that screenshot a typical rag of yours, Indra? I have to admit I like to make it eh, oscillate (you know, «flattern») more strongly, which is why I was expecting much more optical compensation of margins to be necessary – but maybe I'm way off.

BTW, I just realized Gerard Unger's «While You're Reading» also has a nice rag.

Being a Swiss national, I am sure you have already seen the many Swiss books published by the likes of Niggly in Europe during the big modernist heyday and even older MIT Press books on design and architecture. I don't know of any novels in that arena but many, what we call in America, "coffee table books". Of course the Dutch have a bunch in the typography vein including Unger's "While you Were Reading", Middendorp's "Dutch Type", and Smeijers "Counterpunch".

I tend to read non-fiction mostly so I rarely see a never setting these days.