A MIND AT PLAY: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Simon & Schuster, July 18, 2017) is the full story of the life and times of Claude Shannon (1916-2001)—the architect of the Information Age, whose insights stand behind every computer built, email sent, video streamed, and webpage loaded. Claude Shannon was a groundbreaking polymath, a brilliant tinkerer, and a digital pioneer. He constructed a fleet of customized unicycles and a flamethrowing trumpet, outfoxed Vegas casinos, and built juggling robots. He also wrote the seminal text of the digital revolution, which has been called “the Magna Carta of the Information Age.” His discoveries would lead contemporaries to compare him to Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. His work anticipated by decades the world we’d be living in today—and gave mathematicians and engineers the tools to bring that world to pass. With access to Shannon’s family and friends, as well as a wealth of published and unpublished documents, Soni and Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time, and bring this singular innovator and creative genius to life. 

Attendees at ISIT had an opportunity to get the book before the general release, but now the book is available to the public. The authors have interacted with several members of the Society during the writing of the book and write that ITSOC members' "passion for Shannon sustained [them] throughout the process." 

JIMMY SONI has served as an editor at the New York Observer and the Washington Examiner , and as managing editor of the Huffington Post . He is a former speechwriter, and his written work and commentary have appeared in Slate, The Atlantic, and CNN, among other outlets. He is a graduate of Duke University.

ROB GOODMAN is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and a former congressional speechwriter. He has written for Slate, The Atlantic, Politico, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. His scholarly work has appeared in History of Political Thought, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, and The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.

 Soni and Goodman are the coauthors of Rome’s Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar.