Jim Corrigan

Corrigan's biography of Alan Turing is well-written and suitable for a diverse audience. The narrative is complimented by pictures of Turing and the places and things with which he interacted. As a child, Turing displayed a penchant for chess, reading esoteric math textbooks, and analytical thinking, often in solitary. Turing's adult life was heavily influenced by World War II, and his work as a computer scientist, cryptographer, analyst, and programmer were crucial to the British effort to interpret communication codes of German U-boats. Turing's work later focused on voice encryption and biology. His eccentric behavior, absentminded hygiene, and antisocial tendencies sometimes made coworkers or supervisors upset, but the quality of his work usually won them over. Turing knew that he was gay from early adolescence, a time when sexuality is first realized and explored. Later in his life, Turing developed an intimate relationship with a young man living on the streets of Manchester. Unfortunately, homosexuality was still criminalized in England. Turing was charged, but authorities kept the news secret due to his stature in the academic community. Turing's death was officially ruled a suicide, though some people, including Turing's mother, theorized that spies had killed him. By the time of his death, Turing had been cast aside by the British government, though he might have had important military secrets which would be valuable in the Cold War. Corrigan's book does an excellent job of highlighting Turing's achievements and the tragedy of his early death. His ideas were decades ahead of his time, and he might have made even more great discoveries had those ideas been valued.… (mer)