James Gleick’s The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood is a well written and fascinating history of information theory.
I’ve read many books about information theory, randomness, history of technology, computer science, etc, and I feel I’m pretty critical as most tend to disappoint by failing to capture the intrinsically fascinating aspects of the particular topic. That said, I loved this book! Interestingly some of my favorite books are rightly cited in this one, notably the importance of Dawkins. I was also blown away to see this best selling author mention the heretical work of Julian Jaynes. I find Jaynes fascinating and compelling but that’s a quick way to be banished to crank island in the mainstream world.
The book is organized well. If you’re not already clear about why the topic of "information" is fascinating, this book lays it out clearly from the beginning. I was fascinated to read about African communications in the first chapter. Much of the rest I was familiar with, but that did not diminish the excellence with which it was conveyed.
Overall a fascinating look at what seems to be the most important fundamental topic there is. Intelligently well written, if you’re interested in what makes the modern world modern this is a great book.