Katie Hafner

Matthew Lyon

A history of the Internet and the story of the scientists behind its creation describes the 1960s effort funded by the Defense Department and the technologies that contributed to its monumental growth

The Origins Of The Internet

Where Wizards Stay Up Late

John Markoff

Profiles computer hackers who overstep ethical boundaries and break the law to penetrate society's most sensitive computer networks.

Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised

Cyberpunk

A tour-de-force post-pandemic novel about love, the yearning for connection, and the ways in which childhood trauma plays out in adult life. When introverted Ethan Fawcett marries the vivacious Barb, he has every reason to believe he will be delivered from a lifetime of solitude. They become the foster parents to two young brothers, Tommy and Sam. But instead of bringing the Barb and Ethan closer together, the boys become a wedge in their relationship. When the pandemic hits, Ethan grows obsessed with providing a perfect life for the boys. In the process, he pushes Barb away, unable to share with her a secret that has been haunting him since childhood. Once the planet returns to a version of normal, Ethan takes Tommy and Sam on a biking adventure in Italy. During what turns out to be a disastrous excursion, it becomes clear just how unusual Ethan and his children are--and what it will take for Ethan to repair his marriage. This hauntingly beautiful novel is filled with humor and surprise. The Boys is a poignant, page-turning literary debut that, above all, is a bold and highly original high-wire feat.

The Boys

"It was the Orwellian year of 1984, when Stewart Brand, originator of the Whole Earth Catalog, and Larry Brilliant, a philanthropic doctor, created The Whole Earth 'Lectric Link, or The Well. Yet, rather than heralding Big Brother, it soon became a liberating cultural innovation that has helped change our world. A balky VAX computer and a rack of modems in ramshackle offices in Sausalito, California, The Well provided a place in the virtual world for people to discuss myriad topics online. It also had a dual existence as members organized parties and rallied to give emotional and financial support to fellow members in crisis. The Well quickly became a community as cherished by its denizens as any small town in America." "This fascinating chronicle of an innovative business venture is also a moving story of interconnected lives. Well Beings ranged from commune-dwellers to technologists to business people to Deadheads. But all members adhered to founder Brand's original credo of personal responsibility, "You own your own words." As revealing as diary entries, dozens of verbatim electronic postings provide unique windows into such events as: Maurice Weitman's reunion with his biological mother: "After over twelve years of searching, and almost forty years of wondering, I've located the woman who gave birth to me and then relinquished me for adoption"; a brutal lovers' quarrel between Tom Mandel and Maria Syndicus that dominated conversation on The Well for weeks, followed months later by his farewell, amid a tragic bout with cancer: "So, thank you all, my best wishes and prayers to each and everyone of you. It's been a fabulous life and it wouldn't have been the same without you.""--BOOK JACKET.

a story of love, death, and real life in the seminal online community

The Well

Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano

A Romance on Three Legs

"A brilliant, thoughtful novel that comes with perhaps the greatest shocker in recent literature (no spoiler alert). A superb meditation on loneliness and community."--Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Our Country Friends "Remarkable .... Starting out as a lighthearted romance before taking an unsettling turn, [The Boys] upends expectations in the best way."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "[An] impeccably written and surprise-fueled debut novel about empathy's role in addressing childhood trauma." --Christian Science Monitor, a Best Book of Summer A delicious and smart summer read filled with humor and surprise. When introverted Ethan Fawcett marries Barb, he has every reason to believe he will be delivered from a lifetime of solitude. She fills his world with a sense of adventure, expanding his horizons beyond his comfortable routine. Because Ethan fears becoming a father, one day Barb brings home two young brothers, Tommy and Sam, for them to foster, and Ethan immediately falls in love with the two boys. When the pandemic hits, he becomes obsessed with providing a perfect life for them. But instead of bringing Barb and Ethan closer together, the boys become a wedge in their relationship, as Ethan is unable to share with Barb a secret that has been haunting him since childhood. Then Ethan takes Tommy and Sam on a biking trip in Italy, and it becomes clear just how unusual Ethan and his children are. This hauntingly beautiful debut novel--a bold and original high-wire feat--is "a treat with a surprise inside" (Publishers Weekly).

A health and technology journalist documents the author's efforts to promote family bonds and healing during a haphazard year spent sharing a home in San Francisco with her complicated octogenarian mother and teenage daughter. By the author of A Romance on Three Legs.

Mother Daughter Me: A Memoir

Working around the clock, the IMP Guys met a tight deadline, and the first IMP was installed at UCLA nine months after the contract award.

The Origins of the Internet

The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner’s remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a “year in Provence” with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoë, Katie’s teenage daughter. Katie and Zoë had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a seventy-seven-year-old woman set in her ways. Filled with fairy-tale hope that she and her mother would become friends, and that Helen would grow close to her exceptional granddaughter, Katie embarked on an experiment in intergenerational living that she would soon discover was filled with land mines: memories of her parents’ painful divorce, of her mother’s drinking, of dislocating moves back and forth across the country, and of Katie’s own widowhood and bumpy recovery. Helen, for her part, was also holding difficult issues at bay. How these three women from such different generations learn to navigate their challenging, turbulent, and ultimately healing journey together makes for riveting reading. By turns heartbreaking and funny—and always insightful—Katie Hafner’s brave and loving book answers questions about the universal truths of family that are central to the lives of so many. Praise for Mother Daughter Me “The most raw, honest and engaging memoir I’ve read in a long time.”—KJ Dell’Antonia, The New York Times “A brilliant, funny, poignant, and wrenching story of three generations under one roof, unlike anything I have ever read.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone “Weaving past with present, anecdote with analysis, [Katie] Hafner’s riveting account of multigenerational living and mother-daughter frictions, of love and forgiveness, is devoid of self-pity and unafraid of self-blame. . . . [Hafner is] a bright—and appealing—heroine.”—Cathi Hanauer, Elle “[A] frank and searching account . . . Currents of grief, guilt, longing and forgiveness flow through the compelling narrative.”—Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle “A touching saga that shines . . . We see how years-old unresolved emotions manifest.”—Lindsay Deutsch, USA Today “[Hafner’s] memoir shines a light on nurturing deficits repeated through generations and will lead many readers to relive their own struggles with forgiveness.”—Erica Jong, People “An unusually graceful story, one that balances honesty and tact . . . Hafner narrates the events so adeptly that they feel enlightening.”—Harper’s “Heartbreakingly honest, yet not without hope and flashes of wry humor.”—Kirkus Reviews “[An] emotionally raw memoir examining the delicate, inevitable shift from dependence to independence and back again.”—O: The Oprah Magazine (Ten Titles to Pick Up Now) “Scrap any romantic ideas about what goes on when a 40-something woman invites her mother to live with her and her teenage daughter for a year. As Hafner hilariously and touchingly tells it, being the center of a family sandwich is, well, complicated.”—Parade

A Memoir

Mother Daughter Me

Glenn Gould was famous for his obsessions: the scarves, sweaters and fingerless gloves that he wore even on the hottest summer days; his deep fear of germs and illness; the odd wooden "pygmy" chair that he carried with him wherever he performed; and his sudden withdrawal from the public stage at the peak of his career. But perhaps Gould's greatest obsession of all was for a particular piano, a Steinway concert grand known as CD318 (C, meaning for the use of Steinway Concert Artists only, and D, denoting it as the largest that Steinway built). A Romance on Three Legs is the story of Gould's love for this piano, from the first moment of discovery, in a Toronto dept. store, to the tragic moment when the piano was dropped and seriously damaged while being transported from a concert overseas. Hafner also introduces us to the world and art of piano tuning, including a central character in Gould's life, the blind tuner Verne Edquist, who lovingly attended to CD318 for more than two decades. We learn how a concert grand is built, and the fascinating story of how Steinway & Sons weathered the war years by supplying materials for the military effort. Indeed, CD318 came very close to ending up as a series of glider parts or, worse, a casket. The book has already been lauded by Kevin Bazzana, author of the definitive Gould biography, who notes that Hafner "has clarified some old mysteries and turned up many fresh details."

The complex, deeply binding relationship between mothers and daughters is brought vividly to life in Katie Hafner’s remarkable memoir, an exploration of the year she and her mother, Helen, spent working through, and triumphing over, a lifetime of unresolved emotions. Dreaming of a “year in Provence” with her mother, Katie urges Helen to move to San Francisco to live with her and Zoë, Katie’s teenage daughter. Katie and Zoë had become a mother-daughter team, strong enough, Katie thought, to absorb the arrival of a seventy-seven-year-old woman set in her ways. Filled with fairy-tale hope that she and her mother would become friends, and that Helen would grow close to her exceptional granddaughter, Katie embarked on an experiment in intergenerational living that she would soon discover was filled with land mines: memories of her parents’ painful divorce, of her mother’s drinking, of dislocating moves back and forth across the country, and of Katie’s own widowhood and bumpy recovery. Helen, for her part, was also holding difficult issues at bay. How these three women from such different generations learn to navigate their challenging, turbulent, and ultimately healing journey together makes for riveting reading. By turns heartbreaking and funny—and always insightful—Katie Hafner’s brave and loving book answers questions about the universal truths of family that are central to the lives of so many. Praise for Mother Daughter Me “The most raw, honest and engaging memoir I’ve read in a long time.”—KJ Dell’Antonia, The New York Times “A brilliant, funny, poignant, and wrenching story of three generations under one roof, unlike anything I have ever read.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone “Weaving past with present, anecdote with analysis, [Katie] Hafner’s riveting account of multigenerational living and mother-daughter frictions, of love and forgiveness, is devoid of self-pity and unafraid of self-blame. . . . [Hafner is] a bright—and appealing—heroine.”—Cathi Hanauer, Elle “[A] frank and searching account . . . Currents of grief, guilt, longing and forgiveness flow through the compelling narrative.”—Steven Winn, San Francisco Chronicle “A touching saga that shines . . . We see how years-old unresolved emotions manifest.”—Lindsay Deutsch, USA Today “[Hafner’s] memoir shines a light on nurturing deficits repeated through generations and will lead many readers to relive their own struggles with forgiveness.”—Erica Jong, People “An unusually graceful story, one that balances honesty and tact . . . Hafner narrates the events so adeptly that they feel enlightening.”—Harper’s “Heartbreakingly honest, yet not without hope and flashes of wry humor.”—Kirkus Reviews “[An] emotionally raw memoir examining the delicate, inevitable shift from dependence to independence and back again.”—O: The Oprah Magazine (Ten Titles to Pick Up Now)

La storia del futuro. Le origini di Internet

An American descendant of its German-Jewish owners relates the history of a house near Berlin, from Nazi occupation to the fall of the Berlin wall

Katie Hafner

Books

Your next favorite book is out there