A former chief of staff of the French equivalent of the FBI, Bernard Besson was involved in dismantling Soviet spy rings in France and Western Europe at the fall of the Soviet Union, and is one of the France's top specialists in economic intelligence. He is also a prize-winning thriller writer--eight of his novels have been published in France. His latest was just translated into English. The Greenland Breach (Le French Book, April 30, 2014) is a spy novel set on a backdrop of global warming.
On your nightstand now:
I'm rereading The Company by Robert Littell, which recounts the history of the CIA. It brings back fond memories of when I worked counterespionage and kept my eye on CIA agents posted in Paris. They were very efficient, showed their faces and knew France very well. From time to time, we played hide and seek. I remember one American couple, both members of the Honorable Company, and both incredibly smart and stunning in conversation. They didn't need gadgets and NSA satellites to understand France and the French.
Your favorite book when you were a child:
I pretty much learned to read with Tintin by Hergé. The little Belgian reporter and his dog Snowy opened my eyes to the world and made me dream about faraway countries and other civilizations. There's nothing better than a comic book to give children a taste for reading, and even for writing.
Your top five authors:
Arthur Conan Doyle, because he invented a genre; Jules Verne, for his powerful imagination; Victor Hugo, because he's the French Homer with a universal mind; Jorge Luis Borges, because he opens doors to another world that lives both inside us and alongside us--the twilight zone of literature; and Honoré de Balzac, because he psychoanalyzed society before that therapy was even invented.
A writer--living or dead--for whom you'd take a bullet:
Victor Hugo, because he risked his own.
Book you've faked reading:
Ulysses by James Joyce, which is as incomprehensible to me as baseball or cricket.
Books you're an evangelist for:
The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges and The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich. These two books describe how civilizations are born and what they represent, both key to understanding politics and the economy.
Book you've bought for the cover
The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé and Asterix and Obelix by Albert Uderzo.
Book that changed your life:
No book has changed my life, per se, but many have changed my perspective. The ones mentioned above represent stages in my learning process.
Favorite line from a book:
"Those changes which occur naturally in life, the sage accepts as an opportunity for learning." --Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Character you most relate to:
Doctor Watson, in awe of his friend Sherlock Holmes.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, because it is a subtle mix of the rational and the irrational, of mystery and logic.