Short Synopsis
The fascinating life and times of one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century: Claude Shannon—the neglected architect of the information age whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded.

Full Synopsis
Claude Shannon was a tinkerer, a playful wunderkind, a groundbreaking polymath, and a digital pioneer whose insights made the Information Age possible. He constructed fire-breathing trumpets and customized unicycles, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots, but he also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution. That work allowed scientists to measure and manipulate information as objectively as any physical object. His work gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass.

Now, Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman bring Claude Shannon's story to life. It's the story of a small-town boy from Michigan whose career stretched from the age of room-sized computers powered by gears and string to the age of the Apple desktop. It's the story of the origins of information in the tunnels of MIT and the "idea factory" of Bell Labs, in the "scientists' war" with Nazi Germany, and in the work of Shannon's collaborators and rivals. It's the story of Shannon's life as an often reclusive, always playful genius. With access to Shannon's family and friends, A Mind At Play explores the life and times of this singular innovator and creative genius.

"Lucid and fascinating. . . . Soni and Goodman open an engrossing window onto what a mind hard at work can do." ---Publishers Weekly

"A welcome and inspiring account of a largely unsung hero—unsung because, the authors suggest, he accomplished something so fundamental that it’s difficult to imagine a world without it." ---Kirkus

"Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman offer a long overdue, insightful, and humane portrait of this eccentric and towering genius.” ---Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

“An exceptionally elegant and authoritative portrait of a man of few words but many big ideas." ---Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

"Jonathan Yen's confident, well-paced narration is ideal for this biography of Claude Shannon, the father of the Information Age." ---AudioFile

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