A fascinating book on Turing and Church is “The Annotated Turing”. It’s a walk through of Turings paper with analysis and commentary.

It was written by Charles Petzold, who also wrote the immensity popular book “CODE”.

https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Com...

It sounds very basic, but I highly recommend 'The Annotated Turing'[0] to any beginner in Computer Science. It's a walk through Turing's original 36-page paper on Turing Machines, and requires only high school level math to understand. I picked it up early in my CS undergrad and it blew my mind. I suddenly understood what a computer was.

[0]https://www.amazon.ca/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

"The Annotated Turing" by Charles Petzold: https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Com...

My recommendation when anyone asks this.

1. Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Inspired-Imitation/...

Definitive and detailed biography.

2. Alan M. Turing by Sara Turing http://www.amazon.com/Alan-M-Turing-Centenary-Edition/dp/110...

Deeply personal biography of her dead son.

3. The Annotated Turing by Charles Petzold http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

Turing's famous 1936 explained in detail.

I read this for the first time in the excellent and surprisingly accessible The Annotated Turing[0], which I can highly recommend. If you're vaguely interested in things like proofs like these or about computability or just Turing's and others' contributions and approaches, the book approaches these things very well without presuming a deep pure mathematical background.

Seriously, read it.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...

Another good book by Charles Petzold is The Annotated Turing.

http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Turing-Through-Historic-Comp...