The Imitation Game

Tonight on DVD I watched the superb movie “The Imitation Game” which I saw at the cinema when it first came out. Starring Benedict Cumberbach as the eponymous Alan Turing, this is the film about how they cracked the German Enigma machine and helped to shorten the war against the Nazis. It is also a sad story that still has me engulfed towards the end in how they, the police, treated him just because he was discovered being a homosexual and that the option of chemical castration (rather than two years in prison) destroyed his mind that lead to his untimely suicide by eating a poisoned apple laced withy cyanide. He was only 41. If they left him alone, I wonder what else he could have put his brilliant mind to, as well as in cryptography and mathematics and of course his algorithms that lead to modern day computers and mobile phones. Thank goodness we live in relatively more enlightened times.

Benedict was just brilliant in that movie.

What I Am Reading

Apart from watching that movie, most of the day I have been reading and have finished yet another paperback, a novel this time, but it was relatively short , unlike the one I am reading now, which is Margaret Atwood's “The Blind Assassin” (currently at page 92 in this 600 plus page book).

This is quite a complex but eminently readable tale Atwood's story alternates between different eras, occasional news articles, and sci-fi stories, a process which creates some mysteries and surprises, yet very engrossing.

Book 3 - John Green "Paper Towns"

John Green "Paper Towns" (Bloomsbury)







Quentin Jacobsen has admired Margo Roth Spiegelman for years. Margo has a reputation for being wild. At times, Margo will disappear for days, returning to school with amazing stories of fun and adventure. Quentin is a dorky yet funny senior who happens to be Margo's neighbour. Quentin is very near the end of his high school experience when Margo knocks on his window one night and tells him she needs him to borrow his mom's minivan so he can drive "the getaway car" for the evening. Margo plans a wild night of events with the goal of seeking revenge for her "friends" betrayal. Quentin's crush intensifies during their crazy night together, yet the day after their adventure, Margo vanishes, and Quentin is left to put together clues that might reveal her whereabouts. While I laughed out loud at numerous points in this story (the road trip is priceless), Paper Towns can be very dark.

This story is intriguing, suspenseful, and explores deeper ideas like how much one person can truly know another person. However, I found the ending anti-climatic so that really took away from how much I could enjoy this book. This is the first book by the author that i have read but i will look out for some of his other books on my travels.