Tag: code-talkers • BookLikes

review 2018-03-26 00:04

CODE TALKER: THE FIRST AND ONLY MEMOIR....By Chester Nez, Judith Schiess Avila

Brenna M's Book Blog

Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir By One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII

Chester Nez, Judith Schiess Avila

Paperback, 320 pages

Published August 7th 2012 by Berkley (first published January 1st 2011)

ISBN: 0425247856 (ISBN13: 9780425247853)

also available in hardcover, Kindle, Audible Audio, and Audio CD

Reading Chester Nez's impression of his early life and military experience was a wonder read. There are books about the Navajo Code Talkers, as well as movies, but this is the only memoir. Using code talkers were kept confidential and top secret for quite a while.

A lot of military terms and such were used throughout the book. This is an important part of the book, but not being military, I struggled and sometimes skimmed these parts of the book. I was definitely more interested in Nez's personal side than the actual military tactic specifics.

url 2014-01-22 20:29

Closer to Cracking the Voynich Manuscript

Ceridwen

In 1912 in northern Italy, book dealer Wilifred Voynich bought an illuminated codex in an unknown writing system. Containing about 240 pages (though some are missing), the manuscript is written on vellum, and has been carbon-dated to the early 15th C. The manuscript has long been assumed to be a cipher - though that wasn't exactly proven until analysis discovered a semantic pattern in the text; it could have been gibberish - and both amateur and professional codebreakers have taken cracks at it over the years. Nada. From this void of understanding, all manner of crackpot theories have emerged, with an emphasis on the alien/Atlantean memeplex of doom. Having a 15th Century unbroken cipher is like the god of the gaps of the secret history.

three pages from the Voynich manuscript, showing script and botanical drawings

ancient aliens botany code talkers Nahuatl Voynich manuscript