The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

_The Code Book_ by Simon Singh changed the course of my life when I read it as a kid. I'd love an update to cover elliptic curves and lattice based cryptography, and to update the at the time speculative section on quantum computing. But the majority of the book covers historical events and is still just as valid as it was then.

The Code Book – Simon Singh (1999) It’s not about technology in general but encryption only, but it covers its history pretty well.

The Code Book (The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography) By Simon Singh

Things I completed: 1. Elon Musk: Inventing the Future 2. The Code Book - Simon Singh 3. Fermat's Enigma - Simon Singh 4. Deep Work - Cal Newport 5. Smarter Faster Better - Charles Duhigg 6. 1984 7. So good they can't ignore you - Cal Newport 8. Distributed Systems for fun and profit 9. Classic Shell Scripting Things I partially read and hope to complete some time: 1. The music of Primes 2. Traction 3. Founders at work 4. Your Memory: How it works and how to improve it Things I would recommend: Fermat's Enigma and The Code Book are very interesting reads if you are into Mathematics. They are both written very well and you don't need to know too much of Mathematics to understand it. On the other hand The Music of Primes started of very interesting and then got a bit too heavy for an evening read. If you can chug along I think it would be a good one too. Of all the self help books I mentioned I think Duhiggs Smarter, faster better is the one that stands out. It is more of an analysis of various teams and people and how they got to work efficiently.…

I highly recommend "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography" by Simon Singh. Really readable history of cryptography, without much math.

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh

A good option is to look for winners of science book prizes. The Royal Society Winton Prize is excellent: http://www.theguardian.com/books/royal-society-science-book-... (http://www.theguardian.com/books/royal-society-science-book-prize). Some personal favourites: The Incredible Unlikeliness Of Being by Alice Roberts is a wonderful book that describes how a human being develops from conception to adulthood in minute biological detail. The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh is fantastic, if a little out of date by now. Cosmos: The Story of Cosmic Evolution, Science and Civilisation by Carl Sagan.

Without going into heavily technical books, I'd recommend The Code Book by Simon Singh. There's also Fermat's Last Theorem by the same author. On the more technical side, it's somewhat cliche but, TAOCP really is excellent.