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The Secret Lives of Codebreakers
- The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
A remarkable look at the day-to-day life of the codebreakers whose clandestine efforts helped win World War II.
Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain’s Government Code and Cypher School - and the site where Germany’s legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation’s most brilliant mathematical minds - including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing - toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility.
Drawing on remarkable first-hand interviews, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers reveals the entertainments, pastimes, and furtive romances that helped ease the incredible pressures faced by these covert operatives as they worked to turn the tide of World War II.
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- By Jean on 11-20-17
By: Jason Fagone
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Target Tokyo
- The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring
- By: Gordon Prange, Donald M. Goldstein, Katherine V. Dillon
- Narrated by: David Rapkin
- Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Sorge was dispatched to Tokyo in 1933 to serve the spymasters of Moscow. For eight years, he masqueraded as a Nazi journalist and burrowed deep into the German embassy, digging for the secrets of Hitler's invasion of Russia and the Japanese plans for the East. In a nation obsessed with rooting out moles, he kept a high profile - boozing, womanizing, and operating entirely under his own name.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 10-02-14
By: Gordon Prange, and others
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Hitler
- The Memoir of a Nazi Insider Who Turned Against the Fuhrer
- By: Ernst Hanfstaengl
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators. Of American and German parentage, Ernst Hanfstaengl graduated from Harvard and ran the family business in New York for a dozen years before returning to Germany in 1921. By chance he heard a then little-known Adolf Hitler speaking in a Munich beer hall and, mesmerized by his extraordinary oratorical power, was convinced the man would some day come to power. As Hitler’s fanatical theories and ideas hardened, however, he surrounded himself with rabid extremists...
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Once a Nazi, always a Nazi
- By Alan on 04-10-13
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The Irregulars
- Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories.
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Spying in Washington
- By Sara on 10-03-14
By: Jennet Conant
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Geniuses at War
- Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age
- By: David A. Price
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Planning the invasion of Normandy, the Allies knew that decoding the communications of the Nazi high command was imperative for its success. But standing in their way was an encryption machine they called Tunny (British English for “tuna”), which was vastly more difficult to crack than the infamous Enigma cipher.
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ok not great
- By JTA98 on 12-09-21
By: David A. Price
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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Operation Columba - The Secret Pigeon Service
- The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.
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Belgium Pigeon
- By Don Rottiers on 08-10-21
By: Gordon Corera
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Alan Turing
- Unlocking The Enigma
- By: David Boyle
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Alan Mathison Turing. Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, a founder of computer science, and the father of Artificial Intelligence, Turing was one of the most original thinkers of the last century - and the man whose work helped create the computer-driven world we now inhabit. But he was also an enigmatic figure, deeply reticent yet also strikingly naive. Turing's openness about his homosexuality at a time when it was an imprisonable offense ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of only 41.
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Fascinating look at a fascinating man
- By kwestrope on 10-16-18
By: David Boyle
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Joe Rochefort's War
- The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway
- By: Elliot Carlson
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 22 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Elliot Carlson's biography of Captain Joe Rochefort is the first to be written of the officer who headed the U.S. Navy's decrypt unit at Pearl Harbor and broke the Japanese Navy's code before the Battle of Midway. Listeners will share Rochefort's frustrations as he searches in vain for Yamamoto's fleet prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and share his joy when he succeeds in tracking the fleet in early 1942 and breaks the code that leads him to believe Yamamoto's invasion target is Midway.
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Amazingly engaging
- By Fletch on 10-19-13
By: Elliot Carlson
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No Ordinary Time
- Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 39 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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No Ordinary Time describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become the preeminent economic and military power in the world.
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Great at 1.5 speed
- By Brett on 01-04-13
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Agent 110
- An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII
- By: Scott Miller
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the secret and suspenseful account of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles led a network of Germans conspiring to assassinate Hitler and negotiate surrender to bring about the end of World War II before the Soviet's advance. Agent 110 is Allen Dulles, a newly minted spy from an eminent family. Dulles met with and facilitated the plots of Germans who were trying to destroy the country's leadership.
By: Scott Miller
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The Vatican Pimpernel
- The World War II Exploits of the Monsignor Who Saved Over 6,500 Lives
- By: Brian Fleming
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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During the German occupation of Rome from 1942-1944, Irishman Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty ran an escape organization for Allied POWs and civilians, including Jews. Safe within the Vatican state, he regularly ventured out in disguise to continue his mission, which earned him the nickname 'The Pimpernel of the Vatican'. When the Allies entered Rome, he and his collaborators - priests, nuns, and laypeople of numerous nationalities and religious beliefs - had saved the lives of over 6,500 people.
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Enthralling
- By Jean on 05-27-15
By: Brian Fleming
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What listeners say about The Secret Lives of Codebreakers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- mean square
- 07-11-17
headers? we need no stinking headers!
a little dry at times. wonderful content. I need an extra right word for passing
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Performance
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- Drew
- 01-31-14
Dull treatment of an exciting subject
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
probably not. there are better books on the subject
Has The Secret Lives of Codebreakers turned you off from other books in this genre?
Not at all
Any additional comments?
I hate to be too hard on this book, but I personally found it a very dull read on a subject I am fascinated by. It's not easy to write engaging non-fiction, but if ever there was fertile ground for it, it was the story of Bletchley Park in the 30s and 40s.There was nothing new for me in this recounting of the facts- though there were some interesting "telling" about some of the more interesting personalities and management styles, but it all read like a newspaper account- there was no "showing". I never felt any kind of connection to the people or the place. It was all just thoroughly, but dryly described.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Sean
- 11-26-13
One of the more approachable histories
I've read or listened to several histories of Bletchley Park. This one does a great job of letting you know what it was like for the people who were there. How the food was. What the conditions were at their billets. How so many people could work in such close proximity and rarely see one another. How the secret of Ultra could have been kept by so many, for so long.
And, yes, what sorts of contributions to the war they were making, whether they knew it at the time or not.
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5 people found this helpful
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- sharon
- 03-02-14
Great Story About Bletchley Park
I really enjoyed this back story about Bletchley Park and the people who worked there.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lycaeides
- 10-15-16
seemed well researched
I enjoyed listening to this , wouldn't exactly describe it as riveting but I definitely learned a lot and the narration style definitely contributed toward my genuine enjoyment of this audiobook
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2 people found this helpful
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- Kat
- 12-14-16
Immersive Story, Flawed Writing
What made the experience of listening to The Secret Lives of Codebreakers the most enjoyable?
The stories about the codebreakers' daily lives. When the author eases away from his running commentary and let the codebreakers speak for themselves, the history comes alive.
What other book might you compare The Secret Lives of Codebreakers to and why?
The combination of linear storytelling, personal anecdotes, and historical context is reminiscent of The Boys in the Boat - although McKay's writing style is amateurish in comparison. That said, I enjoyed the way each author wove his research into the historical backdrop,
What three words best describe Walter Dixon’s performance?
Unremarkable, yet pleasant (He flubbed a few pronunciations, too)
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
"Enigma's B roll"
Any additional comments?
This book is well-researched and the organization is solid. However, McKay needs to enroll in a few undergraduate writing courses. His sentences are unwieldy to the point of distraction. I am relieved I listened to this book instead of reading it; the narrator's delivery was a welcome distraction.
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