A new Shannon biography, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, may help reverse this legacy. Authors Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman make a strong bid to expose Shannon’s work to a popular audience, balancing a chronological narrative, the “Eureka!” moments that sprang from his disciplined approach to solving puzzles, and his propensity for playfulness.
Another book with a lengthy section on Claude Shannon is James Gleick's The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood [1.]. A shorter but still nice explanation in on Brain Pickings [2.].
1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8701960-the-information 2. https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/09/06/james-gleick-the-in...