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The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood (2011)

by James Gleick(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0375423729 (ISBN13: 9780375423727)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

review 1: "Information" is an amorphous topic, and while eventually a lot of the later chapters converge around the story of Claude Shannon and his information theory, that's preceded by -- and occasionally interrupted by -- other chapters that are pretty irrelevant. Enjoyable, but "a bunch of disconnected stuff I wanted to write about" works better when the author admits that's what the aim is. It may not have been helped by my putting the book down for over a year in the middle of reading it, but then the fact that I did so suggests I wasn't finding it too motivating to begin with.
review 2: For me, this book did not do for information theory what Gleick's former book, "Chaos," did for chaos theory. For the most part, it was a really long, dry read, interspersed with... more interesting facts, people and events. I did not come away from it with a better grasp of the subject--just a big pile of historical facts (I forced myself to keep reading, waiting for it to "get good"). I'm left still craving an interesting book on this subject. Very disappointing, especially in light of how much I enjoyed "Chaos." less

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