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tessisreading2's review against another edition
4.0
Informative but easy to read; full of information about not only codebreaking but a "behind the scenes" look at the heartbreaking process of sending British agents into enemy territory in the midst of wartime. Occasionally bawdy, often funny... really just a great read.
leevoncarbon's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating account of the enormous effort that went into coding messages during WWII. At 600 pages, the detail was at times overwhelming but the author’s droll humour showed up every third page or so and that made it an engaging read.
fxp's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating story about encryption and codes before D-day. There are some lengths, but overall I found it very entertaining.
coffeekat's review against another edition
5.0
This was wonderful, but it made me feel kind of dumb, because I could not, for the life of me, track the code breaking stuff... I want to get it, because I love puzzles, but I need better instruction. I'll have to find it.
I love reading all about the different parts of the spy world, and the different parts of the war effort in WW2. It's always so fascinating. I kind of wish I had been alive and available to help then, but at the same time, I'm glad I wasn't alive yet during WW2...
I love reading all about the different parts of the spy world, and the different parts of the war effort in WW2. It's always so fascinating. I kind of wish I had been alive and available to help then, but at the same time, I'm glad I wasn't alive yet during WW2...
mad_matx's review against another edition
4.0
Well worth a read. One man's war in the British secret service...against his own service as much as against the Nazis.
skyring's review against another edition
5.0
The science of codebreaking and codemaking is usually a subject guaranteed to glaze the eyes of all but the most devoted. Technical details abound and the reader is led through lots of alphabet soup.
Usually.
Not this time. The codebreakers of WW2 were an eccentric lot, it turns out, all brilliant, many fatally flawed. Leo Marks (son of the bookseller who established the famous 84 Charing Cross Road shop) is no exception. Brilliant.
And flawed in that he had a deep attachment to the agents sent overseas, often with totally inadequate codes. This is the story of his long hours, days and years spent in helping them and improving the codes. The difference in codes was quite literally between life and death, often with hideous torture intervening.
When I say "flawed", I mean that he wasn't the sort of cog-in-the-machine toe-the-line public servant fighting the war from a comfy chair. He bucked the system and was on the constant verge of dismissal or promotion. Unconventional to a fault. Always with one distant eye on agents deep in Occupied Europe, operating with radio sets the size of suitcases, tapping out messages in Morse while German direection-finding vans zeroed in on them.
And his unconventional book is a delight, a joy to read. It is more than well written, it is a work of literature in its own right. Quite simply, it is as brilliant as its author.
But be warned, dear reader. You will need a handkerchief to mop up the tears. Sometimes from laughter, sometimes from sadness. This is a book that will insert probes into the deepest parts of your mind and tickle the emotion centres, sometimes pleasure and pain at once. I can't really describe it, but this book somehow joins your subconscious mind to the author's and you share his thoughts in a way that is both intimate and completely natural. I have never met another book that comes close.
There's enough detail to satisfy those with an interest in codes, the story is well told, it is full of fascinating characters, fraught with tension all the way through, but the joy of reading this book is in the words and sentences. Puns and wordplay abound. I am on the last pages even as I write these words, but though I have boxes of books, good books, excellent books to read, I shall reread this one again immediately.
And enjoy it all the more, I am sure.
Leo Marks, I wish you had written this book decades ago, and followed it up with many more in the same vein.
Usually.
Not this time. The codebreakers of WW2 were an eccentric lot, it turns out, all brilliant, many fatally flawed. Leo Marks (son of the bookseller who established the famous 84 Charing Cross Road shop) is no exception. Brilliant.
And flawed in that he had a deep attachment to the agents sent overseas, often with totally inadequate codes. This is the story of his long hours, days and years spent in helping them and improving the codes. The difference in codes was quite literally between life and death, often with hideous torture intervening.
When I say "flawed", I mean that he wasn't the sort of cog-in-the-machine toe-the-line public servant fighting the war from a comfy chair. He bucked the system and was on the constant verge of dismissal or promotion. Unconventional to a fault. Always with one distant eye on agents deep in Occupied Europe, operating with radio sets the size of suitcases, tapping out messages in Morse while German direection-finding vans zeroed in on them.
And his unconventional book is a delight, a joy to read. It is more than well written, it is a work of literature in its own right. Quite simply, it is as brilliant as its author.
But be warned, dear reader. You will need a handkerchief to mop up the tears. Sometimes from laughter, sometimes from sadness. This is a book that will insert probes into the deepest parts of your mind and tickle the emotion centres, sometimes pleasure and pain at once. I can't really describe it, but this book somehow joins your subconscious mind to the author's and you share his thoughts in a way that is both intimate and completely natural. I have never met another book that comes close.
There's enough detail to satisfy those with an interest in codes, the story is well told, it is full of fascinating characters, fraught with tension all the way through, but the joy of reading this book is in the words and sentences. Puns and wordplay abound. I am on the last pages even as I write these words, but though I have boxes of books, good books, excellent books to read, I shall reread this one again immediately.
And enjoy it all the more, I am sure.
Leo Marks, I wish you had written this book decades ago, and followed it up with many more in the same vein.
feoh's review against another edition
5.0
This is one of those rare books that really moved me - to tears, to laughter, and to some deep thoughts around cryptography and its role in one of the most epic conflicts in history - WWII.
The author, Leo Marks has a delightfully British style of prose that's witty, self effacing, and delightfully quirky.
While the book is semi-autobiographical, the story really revolves around the incredible game of chess waged between Mr. Marks and his opposite number in German intelligence "Herr Giskes".
Make no mistake - while this book is replete with the minutia that excites technical folk like myself (including several explanations as to how the codes work, but in accessible layman's terms), it is in large part a story about Mr. Marks's interactions with the SOE agents he brief and sent out into the field to fight the Nazi's in occupied territory.
In telling their (the agent's) stories, he pulls no punches. They often met with a terrible fate at the hand of the Germans, but ultimately, the story does not dwell on such atrocities and focuses on the larger war and Mr. Marks's role in it.
I am at a loss to convey how much I appreciate this book. To say I love it would be to trivialize the experience in a sense, so I won't do that.
If you're a WWII buff, a cryptography buff, or even if you aren't and enjoy a compelling story about a genius at work, this book is for you.
The author, Leo Marks has a delightfully British style of prose that's witty, self effacing, and delightfully quirky.
While the book is semi-autobiographical, the story really revolves around the incredible game of chess waged between Mr. Marks and his opposite number in German intelligence "Herr Giskes".
Make no mistake - while this book is replete with the minutia that excites technical folk like myself (including several explanations as to how the codes work, but in accessible layman's terms), it is in large part a story about Mr. Marks's interactions with the SOE agents he brief and sent out into the field to fight the Nazi's in occupied territory.
In telling their (the agent's) stories, he pulls no punches. They often met with a terrible fate at the hand of the Germans, but ultimately, the story does not dwell on such atrocities and focuses on the larger war and Mr. Marks's role in it.
I am at a loss to convey how much I appreciate this book. To say I love it would be to trivialize the experience in a sense, so I won't do that.
If you're a WWII buff, a cryptography buff, or even if you aren't and enjoy a compelling story about a genius at work, this book is for you.
nogayourbroga's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
slow-paced
5.0
Both wonderful informative about the activities of the signals department of SOE, and sarcastically witty in a way that only a British Jew could write. Leo Marks, for all that he likes to hear himself talk (600 pages!), always felt engrossing, even when bringing up the technical aspects.
Merde alors, Leo.
Merde alors, Leo.
pelicaaan's review against another edition
5.0
This is terrific.
It's a World War II memoir of a member of the SOE, but Leo Marks was not one of the guys who parachuted into France to sabotage trains. He'd gone to the code school but was too unorthodox for Bletchley Park, so wound up being the code man for the SOE. He was appalled at how insecure the SOE's codes were and immediately began to try to correct this.
Marks's story is a sort of behind-the-scenes picture of how the SOE worked; his war was very much a war against bureaucracy, interdepartmental mistrust, and "we've always done it this way" thinking. His prose is full of witty observations and ironic asides that I frequently found hilarious.
I haven't enjoyed a book more all year. Highly, highly, highly recommended.
It's a World War II memoir of a member of the SOE, but Leo Marks was not one of the guys who parachuted into France to sabotage trains. He'd gone to the code school but was too unorthodox for Bletchley Park, so wound up being the code man for the SOE. He was appalled at how insecure the SOE's codes were and immediately began to try to correct this.
Marks's story is a sort of behind-the-scenes picture of how the SOE worked; his war was very much a war against bureaucracy, interdepartmental mistrust, and "we've always done it this way" thinking. His prose is full of witty observations and ironic asides that I frequently found hilarious.
I haven't enjoyed a book more all year. Highly, highly, highly recommended.
srash's review against another edition
5.0
I've always been fascinated by cryptography and British espionage during WWII. (I blame repeatedly reading this book as a teenager: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1656789.The_Double_Cross_System_in_the_War_of_1939_1945)
I stumbled across a reference to Marks's book recently and was surprised I had never heard of it before. It's easily one of the best wartime memoirs I have ever read. Though Marks was, essentially, deskbound for the duration of the war, his account of his time developing codes for the SOE (a secret organization that instigated sabotage and organized partisan resistance movements against Nazi Germany) is every bit as gripping as a combat memoir.
Some of the cryptography stuff was beyond me, but overall Marks does a good job of explaining it to where you can follow along. He also has a delightful, self-deprecating, witty, and obscene British sense of humor. He excels at telling hilariously absurd stories, and there are a lot of them in here as he describes battling bureaucracy in his quest to increase the security of the codes assigned to his agents.
And that was no laughing matter. Marks clearly was fond of the agents in his care, and his affection for them and his sorrow at the ones who were lost is still palpable, though he wrote the book 50 years after the war. The sorest point for him--and the subplot I found most fascinating, though they were all interesting--was his cat-and-mouse game against his German counterpart in Holland, Hermann Giskes.
From the beginning of his time at SOE, Marks expressed concern about whether the Germans had infiltrated the Dutch SOE network. He felt like their wireless messages were too near and clean to be composed in the field, and he started to suspect that they were actually composed in controlled settings by the German intelligence service. Marks devoted a lot of effort into trying to prove this infiltration, but his superiors, though sympathetic, insisted that there was no way of knowing for sure whether he was right. As a result, they continued to send agents and supplies to Holland.
It was only after Giskes, in a real 1980s movie villain move, sent a taunting message to them that they realized that Marks had been right. And by that time, well over 50 SOE agents had been sent to their death in Holland. Little wonder Marks was so determined to ensuring his codes were secure and remained disturbed by the SOE's failures long after the organization ceased to exist.
Nevertheless, Marks never reads like he has an axe to grind--he's blunt about the SOE's shortcomings (and his own mistakes) but never to the point of being offputting.
Overall, one of the better, more unique books I've read all year.
I stumbled across a reference to Marks's book recently and was surprised I had never heard of it before. It's easily one of the best wartime memoirs I have ever read. Though Marks was, essentially, deskbound for the duration of the war, his account of his time developing codes for the SOE (a secret organization that instigated sabotage and organized partisan resistance movements against Nazi Germany) is every bit as gripping as a combat memoir.
Some of the cryptography stuff was beyond me, but overall Marks does a good job of explaining it to where you can follow along. He also has a delightful, self-deprecating, witty, and obscene British sense of humor. He excels at telling hilariously absurd stories, and there are a lot of them in here as he describes battling bureaucracy in his quest to increase the security of the codes assigned to his agents.
And that was no laughing matter. Marks clearly was fond of the agents in his care, and his affection for them and his sorrow at the ones who were lost is still palpable, though he wrote the book 50 years after the war. The sorest point for him--and the subplot I found most fascinating, though they were all interesting--was his cat-and-mouse game against his German counterpart in Holland, Hermann Giskes.
From the beginning of his time at SOE, Marks expressed concern about whether the Germans had infiltrated the Dutch SOE network. He felt like their wireless messages were too near and clean to be composed in the field, and he started to suspect that they were actually composed in controlled settings by the German intelligence service. Marks devoted a lot of effort into trying to prove this infiltration, but his superiors, though sympathetic, insisted that there was no way of knowing for sure whether he was right. As a result, they continued to send agents and supplies to Holland.
It was only after Giskes, in a real 1980s movie villain move, sent a taunting message to them that they realized that Marks had been right. And by that time, well over 50 SOE agents had been sent to their death in Holland. Little wonder Marks was so determined to ensuring his codes were secure and remained disturbed by the SOE's failures long after the organization ceased to exist.
Nevertheless, Marks never reads like he has an axe to grind--he's blunt about the SOE's shortcomings (and his own mistakes) but never to the point of being offputting.
Overall, one of the better, more unique books I've read all year.