In the tradition of Shadow Divers and The Wager, the incredible story of the pirate slave ship Guerrero, which wrecked in the Florida Keys, and the scuba divers who tracked it down nearly two hundred years later.In 1827, the brig Guerrero was racing across the Florida Straits with 561 kidnapped Africans in its hold. Though Britain and the United States had banned the Atlantic slave trade, outlaw captains like José Gomez attempted...

Inside the making of a videogame that defined a generation: Grand Theft AutoGrand Theft Auto is one of the biggest and most controversial videogame franchises of all time. Since its first release in 1997, GTA has pioneered the use of everything from 3D graphics to the voices of top Hollywood actors and repeatedly transformed the world of gaming. Despite its incredible innovations in the $75 billion game industry, it has also been a lightn...

In 2011, a young idealist named Ross Ulbricht launched a website called Silk Road. It was an Amazon for drugs, hidden in the dark web and powered by a new, untraceable currency called Bitcoin. Ulbricht believed he was creating a libertarian utopia, a free market beyond the reach of the state. "The Pirate Roberts" charts the rise and fall of the world's most notorious online marketplace. Operating under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," Ulbricht grew his startup into a multimillion-doll...

Masters of Doom is the amazing true story of the Lennon and McCartney of video games: John Carmack and John Romero. Together, they ruled big business. They transformed popular culture. And they provoked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived a unique and rollicking American Dream, escaping the broken homes of their youth to co-create the most notoriously successful game franchises in history—Doom and Quake—until the games they made tore them apart....

From award-winning journalist David Kushner, a reported memoir about family, survival, and the unwavering power of love—and the basis for the podcast Alligator Candy.David Kushner grew up in the early 1970s in the Florida suburbs. It was when kids still ran free, riding bikes and disappearing into the nearby woods for hours at a time. One morning in 1973, however, everything changed. David’s older brother Jon biked through the forest to the convenience sto...

The explosive true story of the first African-American family to move into one of America's most iconic suburbs, Levittown, Pennsylvania.In the decade after World War II, one entrepreneurial family helped thousands of people buy into the American dream of owning a home, not just any home, but a good one, with all the modern conveniences. The Levitts--two brothers, William and Alfred, and their father, Abe--pooled their talents in land use, architecture, and sales t...

The gripping origin story of Pong, Atari, and the digital icons who defined the world of video games.A deep, nostalgic dive into the advent of gaming, Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master returns us to the emerging culture of Silicon Valley. At the center of this graphic history, dynamically drawn in colors inspired by old computer screens, is the epic feud that raged between Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and inventor Ralph Baer for the title of “father of th...

The illustrated, inside story of the legendary hacktivist group's origins and most daring exploits.A for Anonymous shows how a leaderless band of volunteers successfully used hacktivism to fight for the underdog, embarrass their rich and powerful targets--from Sony and Paypal to the Church of Scientology and Ferguson Police Department--all in the name of freedom of speech and information. Their exploits blurred the distinction between "online" and "reality...

“An engrossing microcosm of the internet**’s** Wild West years” (Kirkus Reviews), award-winning journalist David Kushner tells the incredible battle between the founder of Match.com and the con man who swindled him out of the website Sex.com, resulting in an all-out war for control for what still powers the internet today: love and sex.In 1994, visionary entrepreneur Gary Kremen used a $2,500 loan to create the first online dating service,...

The behind the scenes story of the world’s most notorious and controversial video games company – Rockstar Games.Jacked is the incredible story behind the phenomenon that changed video games for ever – Grand Theft Auto.Powerful politicians tried to stop it, parents and activists vigorously campaigned against it, but they couldn’t stop GTA breaking records. GTA IV became the biggest entertainment product launch of all time, eclipsing all other books, films and music, and wen...

If you think a gang of real-life geeks can’t take on the world and win big...think again. And whatever you do, don’t sit down across a gaming table from Jon Finkel, better known as Jonny Magic. Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids is his amazing true story: the jaw-dropping, zero-to-hero chronicle of a fat, friendless boy from New Jersey who found his edge in a game of cardsand turned it into a fortune!

A magnet for bullies at school, Jon Finkel grew up heckled and hazed until he discovered the trading-card game Magic: The Gathering. As Magic exploded from nerdy obsession into the mainstream, the teenage Finkel emerged as its first world champion.The young shark - now known to his friends and rivals as Jonny Magic - moved on to storm poker rooms, from the underground clubs of New York City to high-stakes tables online, until he landed on the largest card counting...