Andrew Hodges‘s acclaimed, best-selling ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA is available now in a new UK audiobook edition. Published by W. F. Howes, and read by Gordon Griffin, here’s the synopsis…
The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley
Alan Turing was the mathematician whose cipher-cracking transformed the Second World War. Taken on by British Intelligence in 1938, as a shy young Cambridge don, he combined brilliant logic with a flair for engineering. In 1940 his machines were breaking the Enigma-enciphered messages of Nazi Germany’s air force. He then headed the penetration of the super-secure U-boat communications.
But his vision went far beyond this achievement. Before the war he had invented the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer.
Turing’s far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence. However, in 1952 his homosexuality rendered him a criminal and he was subjected to humiliating treatment. In 1954, aged 41, Alan Turing took his own life.
As mentioned in the synopsis above, Hodges’s book was adapted into the acclaimed, Oscar-winning hit movie The Imitation Game. The print and eBook editions of ALAN TURING: THE ENIGMA are published by Vintage in the UK, and Princeton University Press in North America.
Here are just a few of the many great reviews Hodges’s book has received…
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‘A first-rate presentation of the life of a first-rate scientific mind… it is hard to imagine a more thoughtful and warm biography than this one.’ — Douglas Hofstadter, New York Times Book Review
‘One of the finest scientific biographies I’ve ever read: authoritative, superbly researched, deeply sympathetic and beautifully told.’ — Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind
‘Andrew Hodge’s book is of exemplary scholarship and sympathy. Intimate, perceptive and insightful, it’s also the most readable biography I’ve picked up in some time.’ — Time Out
‘One of the finest scientific biographies ever written.’ — New Yorker
‘This rather shadowy figure has now finally been lifted into the light of day… it has to be said that Andrew Hodges has put together an extraordinary story.’ — Sunday Telegraph
‘Hodges’s biography is sensitive, sympathetic and uncompromisingly intellectual. The maths is extremely hard work – but helps the lay reader to appreciate the scale of Turing’s achievements.’ — Brandon Robsaw, Independent on Sunday
‘Life and work are both made enthralling by Hodges, himself a scientist.’ — Sunday Times
‘Andrew Hodges, in this fine biography… brings Turing the thinker and Turing the man alive for the reader and thus allows us all to share in the privilege of knowing him.’ — Financial Times
‘This book has a great deal to offer: clear technical descriptions set against their backgrounds; the story of a man largely at odds with the system he lived in; and the puzzle of Alan Turing himself.’ — Times Higher Education Supplement
‘Save your money for the forthcoming new edition of Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges, regarded by many as one of the greatest biographies of anyone, let alone Turing.’ — Robert Matthews, BBC Focus Magazine