How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information

A brilliant foray into the nature of information, of history, and of making meaning in the face of death and decay.

Our lives are collections of information-from mundane official documents, poignant family photos, and random artifacts to the cues embodied in our genes. Never is this more evident than in the wake of a parent's death. Yet from all these elusive, even evanescent, data points, history is written and a future is made.

This information is stored on clay tablets and wood pulp; in vi...