Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth (Sherlock Holmes)

Recently, I became interested in cryptography and, consequently, in the German cipher machine Enigma. I began reading everything I could find on the subject. Robert Harris’s novel Enigma, whose main character is a fictionalized mathematician, portrays the efforts to decrypt the naval version of the Enigma machine undertaken by the diverse group of people working at Bletchley Park under extremely difficult conditions. The novel vividly conveys what life may have been like for those working there, while weaving an espionage plot that keeps the reader engaged compulsively until the very last page.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It is a short tale recounting episodes from the life of Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher living in Sleepy Hollow. The story is full of humor, and the infamous Headless Horseman appears to be an obvious hoax—quite unlike the dark, Gothic horror of Tim Burton’s film Sleepy Hollow. In fact, essentially the film’s plot shares only the Hessian Headless Horseman and the setting of Irving's book.