Alan Turing: The Enigma: The Book That Inspired the Film The Imitation Game - Updated Edition

This is a very detailed biography of Alan Turing. I was given the paperback as a present but struggled to read enough of it at a time to follow the thread. Listening to audiobooks while standing around at the park or out running is my way around that, so when it came up on sale I bought it. There is quite a lot of mathematical theory in the book, which I found fascinating. And it really comes across how revolutionary Turing's thinking was, both in his work and in his private life. However, I would say it is just too long (37 hours in audio) with more background information than is required. While it was interesting to read details of the global political situation of the 1940s and 50s, much of that information was superfluous to the aims of the book, likewise the history of homosexuality as expressed in literature. A good book, but it would be improved by some harsh editing.

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Turing's efforts to break the enigma code is what I was most empressed by.

the book they based the Imitation Game film on. Allegedly.

a comprehensive biography on the man who led the way to beating the German code machine known as enigma and the father of modern computing. it doesn’t mess around, going back into Turing’s genealogy several generations in order to pick up some nobility.

Turing the man is certainly interesting and his accomplishments are becoming legendary but the minutiae of his existence i do not believe is necessary or interesting in the form of a biography. come to think of it, describing it like a set of bulky clinical files might be more accurate.

A nearly day by day history of this man’s childhood waxes into lessons in advanced maths and theoretical physics. i’m sure this played very well in history circles but from my blinkered, ex-history besotted brain, i see a drudge of a book that isn’t sure what it wants to be: biography or maths textbook. out of the 527 total pages of the book, i would guess about 40% are textbook-like explanations of theory and processes that do not mention Turing at all, the other 60% are actually about Turing. It feels, though, like the other way round.

don’t get me wrong, cryptography, theoretical physics, engineering, cybernetics, and game theory have always been interesting to me but when i read a book titled “Alan Turing: Enigma” i expect to find out about the man, not in-depth explanations of the advanced maths he used. yes, please mention them and give a layman’s description so that the narrative does not occur in a vacuum but leave it alone there or you’ll put people off reading any of it. The title of this book should have been something like Turing's Hut 8: The Enigma Machine and the Birth of Computing.

Excellent life of a great mathematician and scientist who happened to be gay. Unfortunately, his contributions to the British war effort did not shield him from discriminatory treatment because of his sexual orientation.

Deep and dense and thoughtful analysis of Turing, his work and life. This book is already a historical record in its own right as it was researched through the ‘70s and ‘80s before Turing and Bletchley’s current renown, but when some of the people or sources in the story were still at hand. Hodges’ complex exposition of analytical areas (maths, logic, cryptography, submarine warfare, digital encoding and transmission, policing of sexuality) makes this a very weighty read, and I took some years before getting to the end. This approach and his cautiousness, as a biographer, whilst proper, mean this is not a dramatic telling. Ottaviani’s graphic novel version (reviewed here 2019) or the well known film The Imitation Game, give more accessible and entertaining accounts. Both were made drawing on Hodges’ book, suggesting it does have definitive status.

An amazing in depth biography, the author really tried to get into Alan Turing's shoes and mind. Alan was a very intelligent but complex person, made more difficult since he was a homosexual at a time of no rights for such people.
Alan's life is covered from early days of family life, following him through school, on to Cambridge, then the code-breaking work during the war, and subsequently his involvement in developing the first UK computers. Churchill was the man to lead the country through the war. Alan Turing was the man who helped the most break the enemies secret codes.
The author did a fine job showing Alan's brilliance. His love of abstract problems then wanting to find application for them.
I can't say I followed all the mathematics, political or philosophy discussions even having had a science education. I was intrigued at how he arrived at the idea of a Universal Computing Machine well before the advent of computers. Having worked on early business Computers (starting in 1966 on IBM1401G), I relived my early computing days following the discussions of building the first computers in the UK.
I found some parts tedious and anyone without an interest in computers may find it more so.
I read this book after having read the History of Bletchley Park and having visited BP in July this year. This helped visualise his time there.
This book is more than a biography of Alan Turing, it is also the history of computer beginnings, and a good description of social expectation before, during and after the war.

This was possibly the most difficult biography I have ever read. Although it says it was written with lay people in mind, the author is a mathematical physicist at Oxford and probably has a different conception of his audience. Hodges' prose is elegant and dense, and be prepared for a serious read. However, once begun, this is a wonderfully satisfying work about the complex individual who might be "the father of computers." Turing was an independent soul, and his interests were vast--all grounded in whether there was a mathematical formula or concept that could explain the phenomena he was studying. In a 1936 seminal paper, he proposed a universal machine that, in effect, became the computer in all of its manifestations. Possibly even more important to history was Turing's pioneering work in breaking the German military codes during WWII, and thus ensuring the Nazis' defeat. His non-conformity extended to his homosexuality, which was, at the time, considered to be a serious, unspeakable crime he was convicted and forced to undergo chemical treatment for many months. Turing was not interested in fame or fortune--just in a life of the mind. This book is, in effect, two works. In one, in beautiful language Hodges conveys Turing's story. In the other, the author seeks to explain his and his colleagues' theories, and I found myself skipping those sections because of their difficulty to this lay person. Steve Jobs described his goal at Apple to be at the nexus of technology and the humanities; Turing spent his adult life at that place 50 years before Apple sold its first computer. And without his foundational work, Apple would not exist.

This review is of the audiobook read by Gordon Griffin. This is a long listen at just over 30 hours and I imagine a rather different experience from reading. I mention this specifically because there is a fair amount of mathematical theory; "do you understand all this" enquired my wife at one point, "no", I replied, "but it's easier to listen to than to read, because I can drift". However I suspect if you were interested in the maths, then the book would be more desirable.Inevitably an audiobook is more of a performance, some even now top and tail with music, so the voice is key to a comfortable and comprehensible experience. Gordon Griffin, does all the voices, his Churchill is ok, and any number of others, though his impression of Turing as a child grated with me.The book is fascinating, showing with great clarity the intellectual and political infrastructures changing under the pressures of war, then post-war cultural changes, partly driven by the work of Kinsey and partly through the fear of homosexuals as a threat to national security, particularly in the light of the Burgess and Maclean scandal. He is also clear about the 'special relationship' and the shifts in the political and intelligence balances with the USA.Alan Turing comes across as a key figure in the allied victory, his position post war buffeted by the visicitudes of the slow to change establishment mores. The hypotheses around the cause of Turing's suicide is well argued, though open enough to allow other conjectures, but I doubt any definitive answer will emerge, even when those classified files are declassified, a shift that would have intrigued Turing himself.

Fascinating, and devastating story.

The question if you will like this book basically comes down to one decision: Do you actually want to know the technical and scientific details of what Turing did? If yes, this is the book for you. It contains a lot of details on why the concept of Turing Machines was invented, which problem they solved, how the cryptoanalysis of the Enigma worked, et cetera. If you get bored already thinking about this, stay away from this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. In places it gave a bit too many details, but those were usually long descriptions of his private life and philosophical excursions of the author. As for the nitty-gritty technical details, the book gave a LOT of details (which I wanted). It's still a tad shy of explaining the whole cryptoanalysis process that led to breaking the Enigma, but it gave enough details to get an understanding of how the concept worked.

If this sounds like a book for you, go ahead and buy it. You will probably not find a better book for this purpose. Just be prepared to read a lot of personal History of Turing (which is to be expected for a biography) before you get to the technical stuff.

An epic dive into the life and times of one Mr. Alan Turing.

This is a really thick book…so think about how much time you want to spend reading a biography about Alan Turing. Not that any of the writing is bad, but there are some parts that I just didn't find interesting. I think I was looking for a biography that showcased many of the important moments of his life without getting into such minute detail of the characters he met in his life. If you are looking for the main ideas of his life, then this probably isn't for you. But what the biography does offer, it is 100% genuine and detailed. You'll finish the book knowing not just the main facets of his life, but everything else in between.

Pick this book up if you enjoy in depth, detailed reads about one of the greatest mathematicians in recent history.

Note first that I listened to the Audible Published Edition.

This seems to me to be two stories, one technical, the other human. The human story makes my guts hurt. The technical story is in my opinion quite flawed. Perhaps the author tries to overwhelm with words what is not quite understood. The book is very long. There are endless technical discussions that more often than not poorly tied to any underlying thread or understanding of Alan Turing.

I am technical and I long suspected that subjects described in length and with which I was not so familiar were gummed up, not quite on the mark and poorly related to telling us of the genius of A. Turing. When the topic turned to one with which I am quite familiar, this indeed proved to be the case.

There are endless passages where there is no "thread". Topics are jumped back and forth through time with little coherency.

The confusion of the story is increased by the faltering delivery of the reader. The reading is quite bad in the first 1/3 or so. The reader often hesitates where he should continue and continues which he should pause. You can try this yourself by reading a few sentences with the wrong inflections, pauses, etc and simple english will be rendered into nonsense. I found myself often jolted as sentence delivery was just "off".

Thankfully, the reader got much better by the end. Of course, he had lots and lots and lots of practice.

I think what I learned in this book will help me to quickly go to other sources and get a better understanding of Turing's technical contributions.

However, it seems to me that the author misses almost completely the incredibly important point that Turing cut his way through previously unknown jungles of ideas. Many of the ideas discussed, at length, are long now, a daily reality of people's lives, so much so, that the ideas no longer seem remarkable. The book needed not just a discussion but a creative device to not just explain this but to make the innovative thought and problem solving significant to the twenty-firth century reader.

Perhaps that's the most damning thing to say about this book, with its endless pages about the work of a truly creative man, is that the book showed no creativity in it's delivery of a very very long story.

This book, with all its words, is not all bad. It just doesn't inspire - at least it did not inspire me.

When I saw the movie, The Imitation Game, I became fascinated by Alan Turing. Being such a bookworm, my first thought was that I should read the book, expecting more depth and detail about Mr. Turing's life. I was very disappointed. This book goes into a lot of depth -- about mathematical problems and equations -- but all the interesting aspects of Mr. Turing's life were in the movie. The book is very long and , at times, boring. Alan Turing, however, remains a fascinating person and when the book dealt with his actual life, it was very interesting.

I liked this book. I enjoyed learning more about Alan Turing's life, and in particular about the struggles he faced and the innovations he introduced to the world. Anyone who has seen the movie The Imitation Game (which was inspired by this biography) knows that Alan Turing's story is a fascinating and a dramatic one, and it deserves to be told.

So I did like it. Reasons why I'm hesitant to rate it as "really liked," can be expressed in just one or two points. Mainly, it is because this book is thorough. Andrew Hodges, the author, is himself a mathematician, and he explains the projects that Turing worked on in detail. Matters of cryptography, mathematical theory, endocrinology, computation, all are explained extensively by Hodges. He does a good job, but a lot of it is a bit over my little old head. So I kinda had to let it wash over me a little, which meant that sometimes I wasn't exactly excited to continue. The parts about Turing himself, and his interactions and relationships with others, were easier to follow, and very interesting.

So if you're interested to read this book because you liked the movie, I would think about it a bit more before jumping into a commitment. But if you're a programmer, or interested in computational or mathematical theory, as well as Turing's life, then you will definitely love this book.

Engaging, but perhaps too thorough. I just don't care that his penmanship was messy, but I can see how if the author spent years pouring over Turing's correspondence that that would be a sticking point. Hodges also veers too much into analysis. Given the dearth of material from Turing himself, it seemed to me Hodges was extrapolating too much at times. I think there's a tighter, 400-500 page book hidden within the 700 pages.

I do have to give this props for being the first source I've encountered that really explained why early computers often used 40-bit words.

Good: another biography about world war.
Bad: another biography about world war.
Ugly: another biography about world war.

3.5

I got through “The Enigma” only recently. When I say I “got through” I mean it. Being 540 pages of very small print, it was conquered over weeks.

It was worth it.

Turing was a fascinating person with a very rich story which Hodge’s provides in the form of anecdotes from family and colleagues, letters written by Turing, and very fine detail of the time and society in which Alan lived.

Alan’s childhood, in particular tugged at my heart strings, being familiar enough to my own experiences, and traits I see in my eldest son, I felt it easy to put myself in his shoes.

(Alan Turing was not, that we will ever know, autistic. It is important to NOT jump to that conclusion. Yet he was, most certainly, different.)

I found it parts amusing, and parts heart wrenching. I also found myself angry that we didn’t learn about this man in school.


My only criticism of the book is that often times the book departs away from Alan’s story into long tangents about the development of math theories, and highly technical descriptions concerning cryptology (cryptography and cryptoanalysis as well). As a person born the 1970’s, I appreciated the historical explanation of the significance of cryptology to the war, and the attention to the intricacy of Mr. Turing’s projects. YET, I often felt lost, uninterested or confused while reading the long discussions of different theories. I think much of the book was written for people with backgrounds in maths and cryptology, not the average reader.

I hear that the movie "The Imitation Game" (screenplay based on this book) has been criticized for not enough explanation or being simplistic. I understand the desire to not bore or hopelessly confuse the audience. The important part is Mr. Turing as a person, which I hope they get right. If early reviews mean anything, it seems they have.

I will hold on to this book, and recommend others read it, skipping past the overly technical parts if need be.

A fascinating, detailed biography of a hugely important but largely unknown figure.I mean all I knew about Alan Turning was his legacy in computer science but he was much more than that.

He started life as a mathematician then WWII directed him into cryptanalysis (the infamous Enigma machine), afterwards he worked on the 1st computer and lastly became fascinated with mathematical biology. Always a genius he was also an outsider, partly due to his homosexuality which was illegal at the time and was a suggested cause behind his probable suicide at the age of 42.

Alan Turing did not leave much for a biographer and this book deals mostly with his large body of work. This was a bit of a problem for me as I am extremely bad at understanding maths and I felt the theories were not explained terribly well. If you do have a basic understanding you should be fine but otherwise you may want to think twice (although I found it easier once the work moved into cryptanalysis). I also found the book quite dry, especially during Turing's school days (reading books by George Orwell, whom he references, helps bring it alive) but as it progresses this matters less and less as his life becomes much more interesting.

One nice thing is that the author spends much of the time putting Turing's life in context so we also learn such things as the politics behind Enigma, the race to create the 1st computer and the social climate surrounding homosexuality during the time of his death.

Lastly it was written in 1983 (updated in 1990) but I don't think this has much impact as the UK government is still withholding information. I did find it interesting thinking how far science has come since the book was written, let alone since Alan Turing's time! All in all I would recommend this for anyone interested in Alan Turning or the history of computing (I know there are many separate books on Enigma).

A good biography, which manages to balance an explicit "gay agenda" along with the more impartial account of his intellectual life and peculiarities of character. It's an academic work with all sources carefully cited, which I appreciated also.

Turing of course comes across as a very sympathetic figure, but his quirks are made quite clear as well. Particularly interesting for me was the insight I gained into the British class system and how significant this was for the war effort and in general the 'high intellectual' culture. It seems as if Turing was such an odd bird he couldn't have achieved anything like as much as he did without being treated as an upper-class twit.

Also fascinating (and disturbing) was the institutionalised gay repression that (presumably) led to Turing's suicide. I've lost the page reference in the biography, but googling tells me that in 1991 homosexuality was still grounds for dismissal from the British military -- as I recall, Hodges comments on the policy change for the secret service, which was even later.

An excellent biography of Alan Turing.