Not only has it been a mad busy week, but I've also been reading a non-economics book (Iain Sinclair's Hackney, That Rose Red Empire, very much on form although he's a bit of an acquired taste).

However, despite that and despite the towering pile of other books to read, I couldn't resist sending off for Vlatko Vedral's Decoding Reality. It's about information being the building block of life, the universe and everything, which very much accords with my own instinct. He's a quantum physicist, though, not an information technologist. I heard an interview with him on Radio 4's always-terrific programme Material World and decided it sounded a must-read, so it's next.

According to the publisher (OUP) the book's features include:

• Engaging, mind-bending exploration of the deepest questions about the Universe
• Explores the implications of thinking of the whole Universe in terms of information
• Considers the concept of life as information and death as reaching a state of maximal information
• Explores quantum computing and the bizarre effects that arise from the extraordinary nature of the quantum world
• Challenges our concept of the nature of particles and looks at radical ideas about space, time, and reality
• Considers
  the ultimate question of where all of the information in the Universe
  came from, providing exhilarating ideas in the process

To be reviewed in due course.