Why am I passionate about this?

Dr. Mark Baldwin – aka Dr. Enigma – is a world expert and speaker on the Enigma machine and has delivered over 700 presentations and demonstrations (using his own, genuine wartime Enigma machine) to some 70,000 people around the world. He has spoken to a wide range of audiences, from cybersecurity experts and software developers at leading Silicon Valley tech companies such as Facebook, Dropbox, and PayPal, to academic audiences at universities, executives at business conferences, and the general public in a couple of hundred one-man theatre shows.


My project is

Book Dr. Enigma For An Event

Dr. Mark ‘Enigma’ Baldwin is an international expert and professional speaker on the Enigma machine, the History of Cryptography, and the Special Operations Executive, and has delivered more than 800 talks on these topics, all over the world. His Enigma machine talks and demos offer a rare opportunity for the audience to see and even play with a genuine, wartime Enigma machine.

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes

Mark Baldwin Why did I love this book?

The Enigma story and Bletchley Park are now legitimate subjects for academic study, but modern books are necessarily written by people without first-hand experience of wartime Intelligence work. As a publisher, I have always been keen to record the experiences of those people personally involved in such things, and Welchman was not just a leading codebreaker at Bletchley Park throughout the whole war, he was also instrumental in transforming a random collection of a hundred academics into a non-stop production line of codebreaking and Intelligence, employing over ten thousand people. This, our best-selling book, continues to intrigue readers worldwide.

By Gordon Welchman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Hut Six Story as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Welchman, Gordon


Book cover of The Bletchley Park Codebreakers

Mark Baldwin Why did I love this book?

This anthology is a valuable complement to my first book, with a couple of dozen contributors: a mixture of some who worked at Bletchley Park during the war, and some who are professional historians. The passage of time has encouraged archival research, and allowed historical analysis, producing an authoritative account of Bletchley’s achievements, particularly the breaking of millions of Enigma-enciphered messages.

By Ralph Erskine, Michael Smith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Bletchley Park Codebreakers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The British codebreakers at Bletchley Park are now believed to have shortened the duration of the Second World War by up to two years. During the dark days of 1941, as Britain stood almost alone against the the Nazis, this remarkable achievement seemed impossible. This extraordinary book, originally published as Action This Day, includes descriptions by some of Britain's foremost historians of the work of Bletchley Park, from the breaking ofEnigma and other wartime codes to the invention of modern computing, and its influence on Cold War codebreaking. Crucially, it features personal reminiscences and very human stories of wartime codebreaking…


Ad

Book cover of Cytress Vee: A Dog Squad Story

Cytress Vee by Kalvin Thane,

Unlike the typical tales of a flawless fighting unit, this story follows Commander Kami Trenn and her ragtag squad of mixed-race space marines.

Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to…

Book cover of Alan Turing: The Enigma

Mark Baldwin Why did I love this book?

Imaginative and unconventional thinking was essential if Britain was to overcome the challenge of Nazi Germany. Far-sighted and tolerant management allowed unusual talent to thrive, with beneficial results. Perhaps the most famous, and amongst the most imaginative and unconventional, was Alan Turing, so this book fully deserves a place on my list. Well-researched and authoritative, its publication led to a growing interest in this gay Cambridge mathematician, whose life came to a tragic end with his suicide at the age of 41.

By Andrew Hodges,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Alan Turing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The official book behind the Academy Award-winning film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the British mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) saved the Allies from the Nazis, invented the computer and artificial intelligence, and anticipated gay liberation by decades--all before his suicide at age forty-one. This New York Times-bestselling biography of the founder of computer science, with a new preface by the author that addresses Turing's royal pardon in 2013, is the definitive account of an extraordinary mind and life. Capturing both the inner…


Book cover of X Y & Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken

Mark Baldwin Why did I love this book?

The brilliance of the Bletchley Park codebreakers is undoubted, but it must be remembered that they did not start from scratch; they built on the work of the cryptanalysts of the Polish Cipher Bureau, who had first broken Enigma ciphers in 1932, and then passed on all their knowledge to Britain in 1939, before the war began. The tentative and suspicious negotiations between Poland, France and the UK were convoluted and lengthy. Alan Turing’s nephew conducted ground-breaking research in archives in the UK, France, Germany, Poland and the USA to compile this unrivalled account of those early days.

By Dermot Turing,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked X Y & Z as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

December, 1932
In the bathroom of a Belgian hotel, a French spymaster photographs top-secret documents - the operating instructions of the cipher machine, Enigma. A few weeks later a mathematician in Warsaw begins to decipher the coded communications of the Third Reich and lays the foundations for the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park. The co-operation between France, Britain and Poland is given the cover-name 'X, Y & Z'.
December, 1942
It is the middle of World War Two. The Polish code-breakers have risked their lives to continue their work inside Vichy France, even as an uncertain future faces their homeland.…


Ad

Book cover of Notes of Love and War

Notes of Love and War by Betty Bolté,

Set against the backdrop of the flourishing musical community during the 1940s in Baltimore, Notes of Love and War weaves together the pleasure of musical performance with the dangers of espionage and spying.

Audrey Harper needs more than home and hearth to satisfy her self-worth. Working as a music critic…

Book cover of Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers

Mark Baldwin Why did I love this book?

At my presentations, I am so often asked ‘Didn’t the Germans know the Allies had broken Enigma?’ and ‘Did Germany have something like Bletchley Park?’ This book answers questions like these, and shows, in particular, the unjustified faith the Germans had in the Enigma machine. Believing its ciphers to be unbreakable, they failed to spot evidence of its weaknesses and vulnerability.

By R.A. Ratcliff,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Delusions of Intelligence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1974, the British government admitted that its WWII secret intelligence organization had read Germany's ciphers on a massive scale. The intelligence from these decrypts influenced the Atlantic, the Eastern Front and Normandy. Why did the Germans never realize the Allies had so thoroughly penetrated their communications? As German intelligence experts conducted numerous internal investigations that all certified their ciphers' security, the Allies continued to break more ciphers and plugged their own communication leaks. How were the Allies able to so thoroughly exploit Germany's secret messages? How did they keep their tremendous success a secret? What flaws in Germany's organization…


Explore my project 😀

My project is

Book Dr. Enigma For An Event

Dr. Mark ‘Enigma’ Baldwin is an international expert and professional speaker on the Enigma machine, the History of Cryptography, and the Special Operations Executive, and has delivered more than 800 talks on these topics, all over the world. His Enigma machine talks and demos offer a rare opportunity for the audience to see and even play with a genuine, wartime Enigma machine.

Book cover of The Hut Six Story: Breaking the Enigma Codes
Book cover of The Bletchley Park Codebreakers
Book cover of Alan Turing: The Enigma

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,899

readers submitted
so far, will you?

Ad

📚 You might also like…

Book cover of Love and War in the Jewish Quarter

Love and War in the Jewish Quarter by Dora Levy Mossanen,

A breathtaking journey across Iran where war and superstition, jealousy and betrayal, and passion and loyalty rage behind the impenetrable walls of mansions and the crumbling houses of the Jewish Quarter.

Against the tumultuous background of World War II, Dr. Yaran will find himself caught in the thrall of the…

Book cover of Performance Anxiety

Performance Anxiety by Jonathan Lerner,

Lerner's memoir of approaching adulthood in the mid-sixties is deliciously readable, but deceptively breezy. His family is affluent, his school engaging, his friends smart and fun. He has his first car, and drives with abandon. The American moment promises unlimited possibility. But political and cultural upheavals are emerging, and irresistible.…

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in the Enigma machine, Bletchley Park, and mathematicians?

Bletchley Park 10 books
Mathematicians 37 books