Chaos: Making a New Science (Viking 1987) “An awe-inspiring book. Reading it gave me that sensation that someone had just found the light switch.” —Douglas Adams “This is a stunning work, a deeply exciting subject in the hands of a first-rate science writer. The implications of the research James Gleick sets forth are breathtaking.” —Barry Lopez Enhanced e-book available from Open Road.
Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (Pantheon 1992). A rare, jewel-like biography… terrifically readable. It achieves an almost perfect balance between the physicist’s work and his life. —Washington Post Book World Mesmerizing. A stimulating adventure in the annals of science. The New York Times A thorough and masterful portrait of one of the great minds of the century . . . Gleick succeeds in giving us a rare insight into the scientific community, its values, and its mentality . . . [He] brings to Genius high intelligence, a strong sense of narrative, and excellent prose. —The New York Review of Books
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Pantheon 1999). “In years to come Faster will tell people what we were like as clearly as Dickens or Tom Wolfe.” —Patricia Volk, The New York Times.
Isaac Newton (Pantheon 2003). “A masterpiece of brevity and concentration. Isaac Newton sees its angular subject in the round, presenting him as scientist and magician, believer and heretic, monster and man…. It will surely stand as the definitive study for a very long time to come. Fortunate Newton!”
—John Banville, The Guardian
“So ambitious, illuminating and sexily theoretical that it will amount to aspirational reading for many of those who have the mettle to tackle it. Don’t make the mistake of reading it quickly. Imagine luxuriating on a Wi-Fi-equipped desert island with Mr. Gleick’s book, a search engine and no distractions. The Information is to the nature, history and significance of data what the beach is to sand.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times) In the beginning was the word, according to John. We are the species that named itself Homo sapiens, the one who knows—and then, after reflection, amended that to Homo sapiens sapiens. The greatest gift of Prometheus to humanity was not fire after all: “Numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, I invented for them, and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses’ arts, with which to hold all things in memory.” The alphabet was a founding technology of information. The telephone, the fax machine, the calculator, and, ultimately, the computer are only the latest innovations devised for saving, manipulating, and communicating knowledge. Our culture has …
What Just Happened: A Chronicle from the Information Frontier (Pantheon 2002). “A marvellous journey around our technology-drenched world…. The work of a master.” —The Independent
