The Sea We Swim In

How Stories Work in a Data-Driven World

“A brilliant and deceptively simple guide to narrative thinking, and why narrative thinking is changing the way we shop, the way we vote, the way we feel, and the way we perceive the world around us . . . It is such a fascinating and in many ways a new way to look at reality.”

— John Fugelsang, SiriusXM

WE SWIM IN A SEA OF STORIES — stories that determine how we comprehend the world, that define our personal lives, our professional lives, our goals and ambitions and ideals. They can control us, or we can control them — if we know how they work. LEARN MORE…

The Art of Immersion

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

“A highly readable, deeply engaging account of shifts in the entertainment industry which have paved the way for more expansive, immersive, interactive forms of fun . . . accessible and urgent.”

— Henry Jenkins, author of “Convergence Culture”

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…

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…

West of Eden

The End of Innocence at Apple Computer

“The saga of Apple in its early years is a case study of the California style of creativity smashing headlong into the realities of Wall Street. Once again, Californians came up with a revolutionary idea which the Northeast seized control of and institutionalized. . . . Frank Rose has written the book on Apple and the entire Silicon Valley phenomenon.”

— Kevin Starr, author of the eight-volume “Americans and the California Dream” series

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 MORE…

Into the Heart of the Mind

An American Quest For Artificial Intelligence

“A good, accessible report for the general reader on one of the most bizarre fascinations of modern science.”

— Theodore Roszak, San Francisco Chronicle

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…

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…

Books by Frank Rose