The Wall Street Journal - 22.02.2020 - 23.02.2020

C12| Saturday/Sunday, February 22 - 23, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

BOOKS

‘Worry before, and you’ll be prepared. Worry afterwards, and you’ll keep your feet on the ground. But don’t worry during action; that’s fatal.’—HELEN MACINNES

Hardcover Nonfiction

TITLE

AUTHOR/ PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Open Book 1 1

Jessica Simpson/Dey Street

A Very Stable Genius 2 2

Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig/Penguin Press

Profiles in Corruption 3 3

Peter Schweizer/Harper

StrengthsFinder 2.0 4 7

Tom Rath/Gallup

Get Out of Your Head 5 6

Jennie Allen/Waterbrook Press

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Built, Not Born 6 New

Tom Golisano/HarperCollins Leadership

Floret Farm’s a Year in Flowers 7 New

Erin Benzakein/Chronicle

Atomic Habits 8 —

James Clear/Avery

Educated: A Memoir 9 9

Tara Westover/Random House

Becoming 10 —

Michelle Obama/Crown

Hardcover Fiction

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Dog Man: Fetch-22 1 3

Dav Pilkey/Graphix

Where the Crawdads Sing 2 5

Delia Owens/Putnam

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and... 3 6

Charlie Mackesy/HarperOne

American Dirt 4 2

Jeanine Cummins/Flatiron

Love From the Very Hungry Caterpillar 5 9

Eric Carle/World of Eric Carle

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Wrecking Ball 6 8

Jeff Kinney/Amulet

Golden in Death 7 1

J.D. Robb/St. Martin’s

Love From the Crayons 8 —

Drew Daywalt/Penguin Workshop

Happy Valentine’s Day, Curious George! 9 —

H.A. Rey/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Snug: A Collection of Comics... 10 7

Catana Chetwynd/Andrews McMeel

Methodology

NPDBookScangatherspoint-of-salebookdata

frommorethan16,000locationsacrosstheU.S.,

representingabout85%ofthenation’sbooksales.

Print-bookdataprovidersincludeallmajorbooksellers,

webretailersandfoodstores.E-bookdataproviders

includeallmajore-bookretailers.Freee-booksand

thosesellingforlessthan99centsareexcluded.

Thefictionandnonfictioncombinedlistsinclude

aggregatedsalesforallbookformats(exceptaudio

books,bundles,boxedsetsandforeign

languageeditions)andfeaturea

combinationofadult,youngadultand

juveniletitles.Thehardcoverfiction

andnonfictionlistsalsoencompassa

mixofadult,youngadultandjuveniletitleswhilethe

businesslistfeaturesonlyadulthardcovertitles.

[email protected].

Nonfiction E-Books

TITLE

AUTHOR/ PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Open Book 1 1

Jessica Simpson/Dey Street

When 2 —

Daniel H. Pink/Riverhead

The Scribe Method 3 —

Tucker Max/Tucker Max

A Very Stable Genius 4 2

Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig/Penguin Press

Knitting Yarns 5 —

Ann Hood/Norton

Educated: A Memoir 6 4

Tara Westover/Random House

Breaking Bread 7 —

Martin Philip/Harper Wave

Unbroken 8 —

Laura Hillenbrand/Random House

On Tyranny 9 —

Timothy Snyder/Tim Duggan

If You Tell 10 —

Gregg Olsen/Thomas & Mercer

Nonfiction Combined

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

Open Book 1 1

Jessica Simpson/Dey Street

A Very Stable Genius 2 3

Philip Rucke & Carol Leonnig/Penguin Press

The 5 Love Languages 3 9

Gary Chapman/Northfield Publishing

Profiles in Corruption 4 2

Peter Schweizer/Harper

Everything...Ace American History... 5 7

Workman Publishing/Workman

Educated: A Memoir 6 4

Tara Westover/Random House

StrengthsFinder 2.0 7 —

Tom Rath/Gallup

Just Mercy 8 6

Bryan Stevenson/Spiegel & Grau

Get Out of Your Head 9 —

Jennie Allen/Waterbrook Press

Built, Not Born 10 New

Tom Golisano/HarperCollins Leadership

Fiction E-Books

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

American Dirt 1 5

Jeanine Cummins/Flatiron

Golden in Death 2 1

J.D. Robb/St. Martin’s

The Island of Sea Women 3 —

Lisa See/Scribner

Criss Cross 4 —

James Patterson/Little, Brown

Where the Crawdads Sing 5 10

Delia Owens/Putnam

The Museum of Desire 6 3

Jonathan Kellerman/Ballantine

The Girl You Left Behind 7 —

Jojo Moyes/Penguin

Crooked River 8 2

Douglas Preston/Grand Central

Get a Life, Chloe Brown 9 —

Talia Hibbert/Avon

When We Believed in Mermaids 10 8

Barbara O’Neal/Lake Union

Fiction Combined

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

American Dirt 1 3

Jeanine Cummins/Flatiron

Llama Llama I Love You 2 8

Anna Dewdney/Viking Books for Young Readers

Where the Crawdads Sing 3 5

Delia Owens/Putnam

Dog Man: Fetch-22 4 7

Dav Pilkey/Graphix

Golden in Death 5 1

J.D. Robb/St. Martin’s

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and... 6 —

Charlie Mackesy/HarperOne

Love From the Very Hungry Caterpillar 7 —

Eric Carle/World of Eric Carle

Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse! 8 9

Laura Joffe Numeroff/Balzer & Bray

Little Fires Everywhere 9 —

Celeste Ng/Penguin

Wrecking Ball 10 —

Jeff Kinney/Amulet

Hardcover Business

TITLE

AUTHOR / PUBLISHER

THIS

WEEK

LAST

WEEK

StrengthsFinder 2.0 1 1

Tom Rath/Gallup

Built, Not Born 2 New

Tom Golisano/HarperCollins Leadership

Atomic Habits 3 4

James Clear/Avery

Extreme Ownership 4 8

Jocko Willink & Leif Babin/St. Martin’s

Total Money Makeover 5 5

Dave Ramsey/Thomas Nelson

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 6 7

Travis Bradberry/TalentSmart

The Ride of a Lifetime 7 —

Robert Iger/Random House

Dare to Lead 8 6

Brené Brown/Random House

The Infinite Game 9 —

Simon Sinek/Portfolio

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team 10 9

Patrick M. Lencioni/Jossey-Bass

Bestselling Books|Week Ended February 15

With data from NPD BookScan

Alan Furst

Theauthor,mostrecently,ofthenovel‘UnderOccupation’

Eastern Approaches

By Fitzroy Maclean (1949)

1

Fitzroy Maclean was

brought up in Italy,

educated at Eton

and Cambridge,

served in the diplomatic

service in Paris, and then

was posted to the British

embassy in Moscow.

With the advent of

World War II, he enlisted

as a private and rose to

the rank of brigadier.

Sometimes compared

to T.E. Lawrence—in

addition to theories that

he was the model for the

James Bond character—

Maclean fought in the

Special Air Service

against the Italian army

in the Libyan desert,

then joined a mission

to kidnap a Persian

general and after that

commanded Yugoslav

partisans in the fight

against Hitler. This

Scottish aristocrat’s

autobiography reads like

an adventure novel, one marked by

British understatement—which has

its charms. While in the Soviet city

of Baku, Maclean was confronted

by an officer of the Soviet secret

service who held him at gunpoint

and threatened to shoot him.

“I said that if he did the

consequences would be very

unpleasant for him, to which he

replied that they would be even

more unpleasant for me.”

On Secret Service

East of Constantinople

By Peter Hopkirk (1994)

2

British journalist Peter

Hopkirk was a master

storyteller. The subject of

this book is the game of

spy versus spy in a region far from

the trenches of World War I. Here,

German and British secret agents

battled one another to win over the

Muslim populations of Afghanistan

and India while the Germans tried

to incite a Holy War against the

British Empire. Of one British agent

in this saga, we are told, “Cox was

near his prime of life, tall and

spare, blond and blue-eyed. He

moved lithely and he shot straight.

He could manage a difficult horse

and a fast camel.” He “said little,

listened to everything, and missed

nothing.” His counterpart, Helmuth

von Moltke, would turn out to be

more than a worthy opponent.

Very Special Intelligence

By Patrick Beesly (1977)

3

Patrick Beesly served in the

British Naval Intelligence

Division from 1940 to 1945.

The Royal Navy played

an essential part in some of the

most crucial engagements of

World War II, not least the battle

against German U-boats, an

enormous menace bent on

destroying the convoys that

brought food, fuel and ammu-

nition to Britain. “Very Special

Intelligence” vividly chronicles

the rise and fall of that mighty

German effort to dominate the

seas and thus win the war. The

Germans failed, and Beesly, who

worked with codes and ciphers

and reconnaissance photography,

was among the naval officers who

ensured that defeat. Much of the

work was done in what was known

as the U-boat Tracking Room.

Here was the vast table covered

with green baize, the Wrens

(women who served in the Royal

Navy) using their long pointers

to mark the positions of ships.

“This was the time,” Beesly writes,

“when Captain Walker’s famous

2nd Escort Group sank six U-Boats

in one cruise of twenty-seven days.

Walker’s victims included one of

the two first U-Boats to be fitted

with the Schnorkel air intake, or

Snort as we nick-named it in the

tracking room.”

Master of Spies

By František Moravec

(1975)

4

Following the

German occupation

of Czechoslovakia

in March 1939,

Gen. František Moravec and

11 members of the Czech

intelligence service fled to

England, where they worked

with the British. They were

instrumental in the planning

and implementation of the

successful Special Operations

Executive plot to assassinate

Reinhard Heydrich—known

as the Butcher of Prague—a

mission carried out by Czech

army sergeants Jozef Gabčík

and Jan Kubiš. Heydrich,

reigning dictator of

Bohemia and Moravia, was

a prominent member of the

Nazi hierarchy and one of

the chief architects of the

Final Solution. Written in the

first person, “Master of Spies”

is riveting in its immediacy

and emotional power, never

more so than in its story of

Paul Thümmel, the spy known as

A-54. An officer in the German

military intelligence, Thümmel

was a valuable double agent run

by Moravec and the Czechs.

Poland, S.O.E. and the Allies

By Józef Garliński (1969)

5

This singularly authoritative

book, eloquent in its

testimony, was drawn from

experience. Józef Garliński

was among the Poles battling the

German occupiers, an officer in what

came to be known as the “Home

Army.” There was nothing resembling

a cooperating Vichy-style government

in occupied Poland—Poles fought

tooth and nail to retake their country.

The Home Army worked with the

British Special Operations Executive

to provide intelligence to the British

secret services about German V-2

rockets. Polish fighter pilots were

crucial during the Battle of Britain.

Garliński’s description memorably

captures the atmosphere of Warsaw

on the eve of its invasion—the

beginning of the war that would

take the lives of tens of millions.

“The long sunny days were still for

the most part untroubled by enemy

attack; but towards dusk people in

the streets began to walk faster,

the buses, too, put on speed and the

Underground stations and platforms

began to fill with people carrying

rugs and pillows.”

SPECIAL AGENTFitzroy Maclean (right) with

Yugoslav leader Tito in 1944.

JOHN PHILLIPS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

FIVE BESTON ESPIONAGE AND SPYCRAFT

BYMOIRAHODGSON

O

N A FREEZINGmorn-
ing in 1942, a 19-year-
old naval recruit named
Janet Okell showed up
for her first day of
work at Derby House, an office com-
plex in war-torn Liverpool. She was led
into a vast room that looked like a
cross between a gymnasium and a chil-
dren’s nursery. The floor, covered with
brown linoleum, was divided into
squares by white grid lines and strewn
with pieces of chalk and balls of string.
Young women in white
shirts, ties and trousers,
their sleeves rolled up,
were down on their
knees moving wooden
models of ships and
submarines around the
floor. It was like a
giant chess game.
Actually, it was
more a game of Battle-
ship. The floor rep-
resented the Atlantic
Ocean and the players,
working in teams,
were re-enacting sea
battles as a training
exercise for convoy
officers, showing them
how to sight German
U-boats. Canvas sheets
were hung about the
room, and the officers
stood behind them,
observing the proceed-
ings through peep-
holes that simulated
a distant perspec-
tive. The players took
turns firing torpedoes
and dropping depth
charges, the U-boats
diving and surfacing
to make their attacks
as the escort ships
wheeled around in great arcs. Decoders
at Bletchley Park provided the game
with up-to-date information on the
location of enemy craft.
The German submarine fleet was
operating in “wolf packs,” a strategy
devised by Adm. Karl Dönitz that had
become a lethal threat to merchant
ships bringing vital supplies of oil, raw
materials and food across the Atlantic.
The U-boat terror, Winston Churchill
wrote later, was “the only thing that
ever frightened me.” At the end of 1941
he called an emergency meeting and
asked a retired navigational strategist,
Capt. Gilbert Roberts, to create a new
department named the Western Ap-
proaches Tactical Unit. Roberts quickly
assembled a team of inexperienced,
bright and very young Wrens (mem-
bers of the Women’s Royal Naval Ser-
vice) to work with him at Derby House.

A Game of Birds and Wolves

By Simon Parkin

Little, Brown, 309 pages, $29

Women were not particularly welcome

in the navy and some of the officers

coming in for training sessions re-

sented being told what to do by girls

barely out of school who had probably

never even been to sea. They were

to change their minds.

Roberts wondered how, if the

U-boats had been firing from outside

the convoy, they’d managed to sink

ships at the center. His team ran a new

game to find out. They concluded that

the submarines were entering convoys

from behind at night, unobserved. Once

they were inside they would torpedo a

ship and then dive down to the bottom.

With the help of two Wrens, Roberts

plotted a new counterattack: pinpoint

the submerged U-boat by triangulated

sonar and destroy it

with depth charges.

Janet Okell, playing a

convoy escort, scored

a direct hit. Her fellow

player, Jean Laidlaw,

named this maneuver

the Raspberry (a “razz

of contempt aimed

at Hitler”). It was to

prove its worth over

and over.

Simon Parkin, a con-

tributing writer to the

New Yorker and the au-

thor of “Death by Video

Game: Danger, Pleasure,

and Obsession on the

Virtual Frontline” (2015),

has written a thor-

oughly absorbing book,

drawing upon archives

and oral histories. It

reads like a thriller,

with its accounts of

nerve-wracking battles,

extreme weather, ice-

bergs, and ships sunk

in a matter of minutes.

(DreamWorks, Steven

Spielberg’s company,

has optioned the film

rights.) Mr. Parkin

brings into focus the

heroic lives of Wrens

whose arduous work was not only

overlooked but also kept an “official

secret” for 50 years. The women who

played the game might never have

boarded a ship, but their work saved the

lives of countless who did.

I was interested to learn that one

of the officers training at Derby House

was Cmdr. Nicholas Monsarrat, whose

bestselling war novel “The Cruel Sea”

(1951) gave me childhood nightmares.

Mr. Parkin writes that it was seven

years after the war before Monsarrat

could bring himself to touch the water

with his toes when he went to the

beach. For him, and for thousands of

sailors on both sides of the conflict,

the sea was a lethal monster.

Ms. Hodgson is the author of “It

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time:

My Adventures in Life and Food.”

The Invention

Of the Raspberry

GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

WOLFA U-boat in 1942.