I wrote a more complete review on my blog.

As with Chaos, Gleick displays a mastery and a passion for the history of ideas while creating new connections himself. Thinkers great and small come to life, and he has a real knack for surfacing exactly the right quote or life detail in a the life of whatever thought he’s following.

Gleick starts (and ends) with Shannon – that odd man from Bell Labs whose information theory is one of the most important developments of thought in the 20th Century, and who starred in Chaos as well. Shannon was a practical man for all that. Whatsoever you understand about information, interference, bits and bobs, data, bits and bytes, or memes, Shannon had a hand in it. He was that badass.

I stopped many times to revel in a factoid or shake my head at the human-ness of the way thoughts travel across disciplines, and sometimes don't.

If you have any interest in the history of thought, and especially in information theory, you really should read this book.