A history of cryptography from ancient Egypt through quantum computing. My favorite parts were about WWII, with Turing and the Navajo Codetalkers. Some parts were a touch slow - cryptography isn't nearly as thrilling as the activities associated with it - but by and large it was an informative read. My only real complaint was how long it took me to read. Though Singh's text was thorough and readable as ever, it took me nearly a month to finish. I think I just wasn't in the right mood for a math book. ( )

This is a totally gripping book which is extremely readable, easy to understand and a compelling historical account of codes and ciphers right from the times of Eliazbeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, right up to the present day with the internet and emerging technologies.

What I really like about this book is that Singh easily introduces codes and ciphers to you and you can sit and work out their translations yourself. it's the kind of book that makes you want to get pen and paper and make your own code or work out the ones in the book (I did!). You even get multiple pages at the end with codes for you to work out. Very fascinating.

The one downside to the book is that some of it does get a little technical and over my head (probably yours too) so I did a bit of page flipping towards the end (the quantum mechanics section just totally lost me). So you won't understand the entire book but about 98% of it instead (unless you're Einstein in which case you won't have any problems at all).

This is THE definitive book for codes and code breaking. I can't recommend this enough. ( )

A interesting history of cryptography. What especially singled this book out was the cryptographic competition and the money reward. I tried but some Swedes won the prize just one year after the book came out. ( )

Very different than my normal reading, but vastly interesting. I'm so glad that I branched out to read it and would highly recommend it from a scientific and historical standpoint. ( )

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