No Better Time - by Molly Knight Raskin (Hardcover)

About the Book

Based on extensive original research and interviews, a riveting personal and high-tech story, with a heartbreaking 9/11 coda

Book Synopsis

No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.

Danny Lewin's brilliant but brief life is largely unknown because, until now, those closest to him have guarded their memories and quietly mourned their loss. For Lewin was almost certainly the first victim of 9/11, stabbed to death at age 31 while trying to overpower the terrorists who would eventually fly American Flight 11 into the World Trade Center. But ironically it was 9/11 that proved the ultimate test for Lewin's vision--while phone communication failed and web traffic surged as never before, the critical news and government sites that relied on Akamai -- and the technology pioneered by Danny Lewin -- remained up and running.

Review Quotes

Kirkus Reviews, 8/1/13
"Bittersweet but celebratory."

Booklist, 9/1/13
"Little-known but thoroughly captivating life story... A superlatively written and well-deserved tribute to an overlooked internet pioneer and true American hero."
Tablet Magazine, 9/11/13
"[A] terrific new biography."

Winnipeg Free Press, 9/9/13
"No Better Time is the chronicle of a man who gave his life to technology and gave his life for mankind."

The Daily Beast, 9/17/13
"This is Lewin's fascinating biography, but it is also a history of the Internet, and those who took it from clunky dial-up service to the speed-of-light marvel. It is also the story of the September 11 attacks themselves, and how they ground the exuberance of the 1990s to a halt. Raskin has meticulously reconstructed the buoyancy of the '90s dot-com boom, and her restraint in covering the attacks lends a sober poignancy to Lewin's story."

About the Author

Molly Knight Raskin is a Columbia School of Journalism graduate who has reported for Scientific American Mind, Psychology Today, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Her television credits include two PBS documentaries. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and two daughters.
MollyKnightRaskin.com