"The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood" by James Gleick

 

Publisher: Pantheon Books

Copyright: 2011

ISBN: 9780375423727

This is a very interesting book that takes a in-depth look at the history of information from the very beginning of humankinds existence to the modern day (or at least 2011 when it was published).

Mr. Gleick looks at such topics as drum speaking, cryptography, the telegraph and development of morse code etc., modern day communications using things such as memes, and much more.

There is so much information in this book that a times it is rather daunting to read, but at the same time the amount of research the author has done to support his conclusions is amazing. A book such as this could easily (at least in my humble opinion) form a good portion of a master's thesis.

Admittedly, it did take me some time to read this book but a lot of that was due to the fact that not only was I reading other books at the same time, but the majority of the world at the time was trying to get things back to normal after the Covid outbreak.

Overall, and extremely well written and researched book that is recommended for anybody who is studying communications theory, and do some sand anthropology as well.

"Digital Fortress" by Dan Brown

 

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Copyright: 1998.

ISBN: 9780312263126

This is the second book of Dan Brown’s that I’ve read (I read The Da Vinci Code first, not realising that it was the second book in a series). This story however is a stand-alone novel that concerns the American National Security Agency (NSA), and its cryptographic division who have a sophisticated computer program that can decode anything in a matter of minutes, until it comes across a code written by a former employee.

A high level cryptographer in the NSA is called in to solve the riddle of this new code when the agency is essentially held hostage by a code system that threatens to put put them out of business, and ensure 100% privacy to everyone in the world - something no security agency would want.

Unlike numerous thriller novels there isn’t tonnes of violence, with everybody armed to the teeth, etc. This novel is could easily be considered a classic as it requires the reader to think, and understand rather than just experience the visceral pleasure.

It is great to see the emergence of strong female characters in Brown's books, as the spy/thriller genre has been centred almost solely on males for decades. An excellent novel, looking forward to reading more of his work.