This image is the cover for the book Mind at Play

Mind at Play

An award-winning biography “reveals the remarkable human behind some of the most important theoretical and practical contributions to the information age” (Nature).

In their second collaboration, biographers Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman present the story of Claude Shannon—one of the foremost intellects of the twentieth century and 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 the first wearable computer, 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.” In this elegantly written, exhaustively researched biography, Soni and Goodman reveal Claude Shannon’s full story for the first time. With unique access to Shannon’s family and friends, A Mind at Play brings this singular innovator and always playful genius to life.

“We owe Claude Shannon a lot, and Soni & Goodman’s book takes a big first step in paying that debt.” —San Francisco Review of Books

“Engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly

“Terrific. . . .fluidly written, thoroughly researched, and important.” —Martin J. Sherwin, coauthor of the Pulitzer Prize–winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

“For historians, philosophers, cryptographers, geeks, introverts, and anyone who has ever taken something apart to understand how it works.” —Library Journal

“Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman make a convincing case . . . Without Shannon, the digital revolution would have ground to a halt.” —Wall Street Journal

“Readers will enjoy this portrait of a modern-day Da Vinci.” —Fortune

Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman

Jimmy Soni is an award-winning author. His newest book, The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, was a national bestseller and received critical acclaim from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, The Economist, Financial Times, and more. His previous book, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, won the 2017 Neumann Prize, awarded by the British Society for the History of Mathematics for the best book on the history of mathematics for a general audience, and the 2019 Middleton Prize by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his daughter, Venice.

Simon & Schuster