The Cracking Code Book: How to make it, break it, hack it, crack it

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McKay traces the increasingly sophisticated use and decryption of coded texts to wage and win wars, to woo lovers, and to conceal esoteric or scientific knowledge throughout the centuries. That being said, I could hardly imagine even approaching the problems Elonka Dunin and Klaus Schmeh have tackled. The only possible caveat is that dates of recent advances tend to be in the late 1990s, so it may be that further major developments have occurred after it was published. The voice from the kitchen belonged to Rufus, Watson’s middle-aged son who suffers from schizophrenia. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression.

Isaacson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of best sellers Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs, offers a startling, insightful look at this lifesaving, hugely significant scientific advancement and the brilliant Doudna, who wrestles with the serious moral questions that accompany her creation. The relative dearth of non-technical books on the subject may be a reflection of its technical foundations, which compel hard decisions about what to include and what to gloss over. Reading this book has clarified my illusions that older cryptograms were simple, and deeply increased my respect for pencil and paper methods. These subjects may be considered digressions, but in both cases considerable effort was expended over many years to ‘crack the code’ and some of the techniques used have been applied to other areas where secrecy actually was intended.The Code Breaker unfolds as an enthralling detective story, crackling with ambition and feuds, laboratories and conferences, Nobel laureates and self-taught mavericks. Shortlisted for 2021's Waterstones Book of the Year and our biggest selling Thriller of the Month ever, the audacious and original whodunit was the breakout publishing success story of last year. Some of the answers are in the form of an expression of several words rather than one word so be warned even experienced codebreaking regulars like me might find themselves frustrated.

But when they discover a secret message in an old book, that says: ‘Mary Jordan did not die naturally’, the mystery has very much found them. This book claims to be a history of the science of secrecy from Ancient Egypt to quantum cryptography. In tracing these events, the book also delves into the stories of major Bletchley characters, ‘boffins’ such as Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, and ‘Debs’ such as Joan Clarke and Margaret Rock. With clear mathematical, linguistic and technological demonstrations of many of the codes, as well as illustrations of some of the remarkable personalities behind them – many courageous, some villainous – The Code Book traces the fascinating development of codes and code-breaking from military espionage in Ancient Greece to modern computer ciphers, to reveal how the remarkable science of cryptography has often changed the course of history.I am not expert in this subject, why is why I read the book, but as far as I can see it gives an excellent overview. A fun book telling the neat and weird secret histories, plus a practical guide to solving most any cipher. This brilliant, passionate, irresistible book has it all: twisty mystery, codebreaking, secrets, encrypted messages! But Singh's mathematical prowess sometimes gets the better of his journalistic instincts, leading to technical descriptions that unnecessarily disrupt the narrative flow.