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The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone—In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the “Adam and Eve” of the NSA, Elizebeth’s story, incredibly, has never been told

In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation’s history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizabeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler’s Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma–and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life.Fagone unveils America’s code-breaking history through the prism of Smith’s life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. 

Blending the lively pace and compelling detail that are the hallmarks of Erik Larson’s bestsellers with the atmosphere and intensity of The Imitation Game, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is page-turning popular history at its finest.

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— 2019 —

  • The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict (Rating: 3/5)
  • The Library Book by Susan Orlean (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Real Story: Understanding the Big Picture of the Bible by Dr. Edward Sri and Curtis Martin (Rating: 2/5)
  • The Royal Nanny by Karen Harper (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life by Ivanka Trump (Rating: 3/5)
  • Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Rating: 5/5)
  • Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Bell Canto by Ann Patchett (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success by Ivanka Trump (Rating: 3/5)
  • Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou (Rating: 5/5)
  • Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (Rating: 4/5)

— 2018 —

  • How to Be a Hepburn in a Kardashian World: The Art of Living with Style, Class and Grace by Jordan Christy (Rating: 2/5)
  • When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (Rating: 5/5)
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (Rating: 4/5)
  • Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Doctors Mayo by Helen Clapsattle (Rating: 2.5/5)
  • Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Rating: 5/5)
  • Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King, Jr. (Rating: 5/5)
  • Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Parson’s Pleasure by Roald Dahl (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Rating: 5/5)
  • Small Bites: Forty Short Stories by Don Tassone (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Olivia Fox Cabane (Rating: 2/5)
  • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Inward Morning by Henry Bugbee (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Rating: 3/5)
  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Rating: 5/5)
  • If It’s Not Impossible… the Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton (Rating: 4/5)
  • The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller (Rating: 3/5)
  • Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series by Tyler Knott Gregson (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel (Rating: 4/5)
  • Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (Rating: 5/5)

— 2017 —

  • Words Can Change Your Brain by Andrew Newberg, MD and Mark Robert Waldman (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers into Fanatics by Jackie Huba (Rating: 3/5)
  • The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (Rating: 5/5)
  • Drive by Don Tassone (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • Write Like Hemingway by R. Andrew Wilson, PhD (Rating: 5/5)
  • Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (Rating: 3/5)
  • What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (Rating: 5/5)
  • The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath, Edited by Karen Kukil (Rating: 3.5/5)
  • Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (Rating: 4/5)
  • Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky (Rating: 4.5/5)
  • The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Rating: 5/5)
  • Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Rating: 5/5)
  • Suite Français by Irene Nemirovsky (Rating: 5/5)

2018 Favorites

To-Read

  • No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani
  • Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
  • The Immoralist by Chloe Benjamin
  • The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
  • The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
  • The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
  • The Overstory by Richard Powers
  • Light a Pennycandle by Maeve Binchy
  • A Call to Mercy: Hearts to Love, Hands to Serve by Mother Teresa
  • How to Dress for Success by Edith Head
  • The Little Pink Book of Etiquette: A Civilized Guide to Getting It Right by Ruth Cullen
  • The Little Dictionary of Fashion by Christian Dior
  • Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris by Jennifer L. Scott
  • Polish Your Poise with Madame Chic: Lessons in Everyday Elegance by Jennifer L. Scott
  • All in Good Taste by Kate Spade New York
  • A Guide to Elegance for Every Woman Who Wants to Be Well and Properly Dressed on All Occasions by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux
  • Etiquette: Charm and Civility for Every Occassion by Mr. Boddington’s Studio
  • Emily Post’s Etiquette: The Definitive Guide to Manners by Peggy Post
  • Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
  • Proper, Poised and Polished by Patricia Napier-Fitzpatrick
  • Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
  • 100 Years of Fashion by Cally Blackman
  • Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart
  • The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking
  • Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
  • Educated by Tara Westover
  • The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance — What Women Should Know by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
  • The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
  • The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont
  • Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
  • The Spy Wore Red by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • The Spy Went Dancing by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • The Spy Wore Silk by Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones
  • The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Anne-Marie O’Connor
  • World Without End by Ken Folloett
  • Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry
  • Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
  • Along the Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams
  • A Writer’s Guide to Powerful Paragraphs by John Walsh
  • The Art of Readable Writing by Rudolf Flesch, PhD
  • Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
  • Over to You by Roald Dahl
  • Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Clint Hill
  • The Boat People by Sharon Bala
  • A Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure
  • Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
  • All You Could Ask For by Mike Greenberg
  • The Girl Who Wrote in Silk by Kelli Estes
  • A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner
  • Tribe by Sebastian Junger
  • Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
  • Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
  • The Soloist by Steve Lopez
  • Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce
  • Words that Work by Dr. Frank Luntz