The Sea We Swim In

How Stories Work in a Data-Driven World

“‘The Sea We Swim In’ is an essential master class in how to think about that next pitch you need to make, letter you want to write, speech you have to deliver, or anything else you hope will be persuasive.The right story can open up a person’s heart and change their mind far more effectively than an argument or set of data—and Frank Rose explains it all beautifully.”

— Daniel J. Levitin, best-selling author of “This Is Your Brain on Music” and “The Organized Mind”

BUILDING ON INSIGHTS from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, ‘The Sea We Swim In’ shows us how to see the world in narrative terms, not as a thesis to be argued or a pitch to be made but as a story to be told. This is the essence of narrative thinking. Learn more about The Sea We Swim In …

The Art of Immersion

How the Digital Generation Is Changing Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories

“In his fascinating new book, [Frank Rose] talks about how the Internet is changing the way we create and consume narrative. . . . ‘We are ceasing to be consumers of mass media,’ says Rose, ‘we are becoming participants in social media—a far more fluid environment in which we simultaneously act as producers, consumers, curators, and commentators.'”

— Ariana Huffington, The Huffington Post

NOT LONG AGO WE WERE passive consumers of mass media. Now we approach television, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate. We are witnessing the emergence of a new form of narrative that is native to the Internet. Learn more about The Art of Immersion …

The Agency

William Morris and The Hidden History of Show Business

“A fascinating history of William Morris. It’s not about the stars as much as the men (and women) who helped make the stars — the ‘star-making machinery’ as Joni Mitchell sang in ‘Free Man in Paris,’ her ode to David Geffen, himself one of the William Morris men. . . . Classic stuff, this book.”

— David Rensin, author of “The Mailroom”

FOR DECADES, the Morris agency made deals that determined the fate of stars, studios, and television networks alike. But everything changed after the agency’s president dismissed his own best friend, the man who’d brought Barry Diller and Michael Ovitz out of the mailroom. A multi-generational saga of loyalty and betrayal in Hollywood. Learn more about The Agency …

West of Eden

The End of Innocence at Apple Computer

“Readers don’t need to worry that Mr. Rose was chewed up by Apple’s public relations machine. . . . He provides convincing proof that life at young California companies was anything but laid back.”

— Michael Moritz, The Wall Street Journal

IT SEEMS UNTHINKABLE TODAY—but forty years ago, when personal computers were still new and the World Wide Web had yet to be invented, Steve Jobs was cast out of Apple. And it wasn’t just Wall Street that applauded—it was most of Silicon Valley. Learn ore about West of Eden …

Into the Heart of the Mind

An American Quest For Artificial Intelligence

“Lucid and authoritative . . . it demystifies a disturbing subject. . . . No one knows how the cognitive areas [of the brain] work: how vision is interpreted, memory is stored, or thought is processed. No one even knows what thought is. Consequently, computer simulations of the brain are attempts to imitate the unknown.”

— The Washington Post

IN A CRAMPED LABORATORY in the Berkeley engineering school, scientists are trying to teach a computer to think—not just to shuffle data but to learn, reason, remember, understand English, and exhibit common sense. But first they have to get it to put on a raincoat before going out in the rain. Learn more about Into the Heart of the Mind …

Real Men

Sex and Style In An Uncertain Age

“If ‘Real Men’ is an accurate survey of the current state of masculinity in America, then it’s doing just fine, thank you, without John Wayne. But even if ‘Real Men’ isn’t a representative sampling (and it doesn’t pretend to be), it’s valuable as a series of vivid, meticulous portraits—sharply written, insightfully photographed, enthralling as no myth can ever be but reality always is.”

— The Village Voice

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT BEING MALE. About power and discipline, sex and violence, and the roles they play in the lives of American men. Think of it as a personal and idiosyncratic survey designed to produce not statistical data but individual answers to the question of what it means to be a man. Learn more about Real Man…

Books by Frank Rose