From the invention of scripts and alphabets to the long misunderstood "talking drums" of Africa, James Gleick tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada Byron, the poet's brilliant and doomed daughter, who became the first true programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. An then the information age comes upon us. Citizens of this world become experts willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And they sometimes feel they are drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and where we are heading. It will transform readers view of its subject. James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and modern technology. His first book, Chaos, a National Book Award finalist, has been translated into twenty-five languages. His best-selling biographies, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton, were short- listed for the Pulitzer Prize. The Information was seven years in the making. Gleick divides his time between New York and Florida.

About the Author

James Gleick was born in New York in 1954. He worked for ten years as an editor and reporter for The New York Times. He is the bestselling author of Chaos, Genius, Faster, What Just Happened and a biography of Isaac Newton.

Reviews

Overwhelmed as we are with today's unceasing gush of information-some essential, some useless, and much falling into the broad middle of the spectrum-a study of how we got here and the innovators who played a part in creating the dazzling web of contemporary communications could not be more timely. Gleick's survey of pioneers of information, from Alan Turing to Claude Shannon, follows the many-layered strands forming the information superhighway. Rob Shapiro, slightly nasal, reads in measured fashion, pausing luxuriously between sentences and paragraphs to allow Gleick's own gush of information to sink in. Shapiro's stateliness makes for an artful contrast with Gleick's study of go-go modernity; listening to the audiobook manages to not add to the feeling of being overwhelmed. A Pantheon hardcover. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Gleick chronicles the story of information and how it has transformed human thought and life, covering quantum mechanics, the structure of DNA, and more. Rob Shapiro's narration effortlessly guides listeners through this dense material and renders it accessible to science and technology enthusiasts and general readers alike. (LJ 7/11) (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

"So ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it..."The Information" is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand." -"New York Times "
"[A] tour de force...This is intellectual history of tremendous verve, insight, and significance. Unfailingly spirited, often poetic, Gleick recharges our astonishment over the complexity and resonance of the digital sphere and ponders our hunger for connectedness...Destined to be a science classic, best-seller Gleick's dynamic history of information will be one of the biggest nonfiction books of the year." -"Booklist," starred review
"With his brilliant ability to synthesize mounds of details and to tell rich stories, Gleick leads us on a journey from one form of communication information to another...Gleick's exceptional history of culture concludes that information is indeed the blood, the fuel, and the vital