Books by Frank Rose


NOW AVAILABLE:

The Sea We Swim In Teaching Guide

Before it was a book, The Sea We Swim In was a study companion for participants in Frank’s executive education seminar in Strategic Storytelling at Columbia University. Now Norton has made his new, 23-page teaching guide available for free download to anyone who would like to use the book as a teaching resource. Included are discussion questions, suggested workshops and outside resources (including academic papers, online videos and magazine and newspaper articles) for every chapter, along with chapter summaries that explain the arc of the book and the nine key elements of story that Frank lays out in its pages.

The Sea We Swim In

How Stories Work in a Data-Driven World
The Sea We Swim In

“As we’ve witnessed in the rise of conspiracy theories . . . science and rationality can be trumped by powerfully told, emotionally appealing, and endlessly repeated narratives that are contrary to verifiable facts. We can say that such narratives are divorced from reality, but as Frank Rose writes in ‘The Sea We Swim In,’ ‘reality is a construct, and narrative is the chief means of construction.’”

— Porchlight Books (staff pick)

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 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
The Art of Immersion

“Like Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking 1964 book, ‘Under­stand­ing Media,’ this engrossing study of how new media is reshaping the entertainment, advertising, and communication industries is an essential read.”

— Library Journal

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
The Agency

“An encyclopedic account of the development of the modern entertainment business . . . There are stories about how deals were made, bluffs called, booze guzzled, pills popped and stars born. There are stories about mobsters and the birth of Las Vegas, and tales of betrayal during the dark days of the Commie scare and the Hollywood blacklist. . . . Rose has done a remarkable job.”

— Chicago Tribune

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
West of Eden

“Zesty, highly readable . . . ‘West of Eden’ delivers a bracing keyhole view of a swarm of rich, talented people frequently at each others’ throats. The author . . . has a sharp eye for the painful contradictions in people’s lives that make you glad he’s profiling somebody else.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

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
Into the Heart of the Mind

“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
Real Men

“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 Men…