Book excerpt: An introduction to information theory for discrete random variables. Classical topics and fundamental tools are presented along with three selected advanced topics. Yeung (Chinese U. of Hong Kong) presents chapters on information measures, zero-error data compression, weak and strong typicality, the I-measure, Markov structures, channel capacity, rate distortion theory, Blahut-Arimoto algorithms, information inequalities, and Shannon-type inequalities. The advanced topics included are single-source network coding, multi-source network coding, and entropy and groups. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.