Archives par étiquette : DeFiore and Company

SAYING NO TO NEW d’Eric Athas

New things are everywhere—and they’re causing us to disconnect from what we value most in life. From New York Times editor Eric Athas comes a groundbreaking solution on how to rewire our impulses to consume new things and reclaim control of our lives and spending habits.

SAYING NO TO NEW:
Why New Things Are Stealing Your Time, Money, and Happiness—and How to Take Back Your Life
by Eric Athas

Grand Central/Balance, September 2026
(via DeFiore and Company)

One of the biggest lies of modern times is that new is always better. A new phone is always better than the previous edition. A new pair of sunglasses is always better than the one you wore last summer. The new fitness app is always better than the one you already downloaded. Influencers are constantly promoting the latest trends, and retailers are designing frictionless experiences that optimize for speedy checkouts. Sooner or later, we can’t help but feel like a new product, trend, or fad is too good to resist. Saying No to New recognizes that instead of improving our lives, new things often distract us from our goals. They steal our time, money and attention—and even our joy and happiness.

As a solution to today’s challenges, SAYING NO TO NEW will help you:

• Understand how your own brain may be pushing you to newness for brief dopamine hits
• Become knowledgeable about the landscape of new things and the forces pulling you in
• Master the art of detecting persuasion in humans and technology
• Make smarter decisions about what to embrace and what to deflect
• Develop a calmer, healthier, clutter-free lifestyle

In SAYING NO TO NEW, Eric Athas draws upon his experiences and the latest research—as well as interviews with scientists, philosophers, tech insiders, happiness gurus, decision-making experts, and others—to provide a framework for reshaping your relationship with new things. You will learn how to break the flow of new things into your life and take a more intentional approach to the ones you do encounter.

Eric Athas is an editor at the New York Times, where he helps journalists learn new tools and skills they can use to tell stories. Before joining the Times in 2016, he worked at NPR and the Washington Post. His work has been published in the New YorkTimes, the Washington Post, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and the Nieman Journalism Lab. Athas lives with his wife and two children in Brooklyn.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD GIRL de Ildy Modrovich

A debut psychological thriller explores what happens when the quintessential “good girl” decides to break bad, by celebrated television writer and showrunner Ildy Modrovich.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD GIRL
by Ildy Modrovich

Grand Central, 2027
(via DeFiore and Co.)

Meet Ferris McKenna: the kind of woman who says ‘excuse me’ to automatic doors, has lied to her husband on more than one occasion that ‘yes, that’s the spot’ and would inevitably end up being the designated driver at her own birthday celebration. Ferris has spent her life being overlooked and underestimated – until she meets Zara, a woman trapped in an abusive marriage. When Ferris gets pulled into a dangerous plan to help her new friend escape, she discovers that being too nice can make you both the perfect ally and the perfect target. As bodies start dropping and loyalties shift, Ferris must decide how far she’s willing to go when pushed to her breaking point – and whether she can trust anyone, including herself.

THE NOT-SO-GOOD GIRL is Gone Girl meets Big Little Lies with the dark humor and edge of You, the kind of compulsive, binge-worthy read designed to keep you up way past your bedtime, perfect for book clubs with bite and readers who love their psychological thrillers served with a side of snark. As a television writer and showrunner, Modrovich always loved creating characters who straddle the line between good and evil, from Californication’s Hank Moody to Tulsa King’s Dwight Manfredi, to the devil himself in Netflix’s Lucifer. THE NOT-SO-GOOD GIRL, her debut psychological thriller explores what happens when the quintessential “good girl” decides to break bad.

Ildy Modrovich spent more than two decades as a television writer and showrunner, producing and developing series for Netflix, Amazon, Showtime, Paramount+, Fox, CBS and ABC. Under her six-season leadership, Lucifer became the number one streamed show of 2021, remains one of the most watched series of all time for Netflix and earned a People’s Choice Award. Prior to her TV career, she fronted a rock band for more than ten years in the LA club scene – where she learned that winning over any audience, whether they’re holding a beer or a book, means giving them something they didn’t see coming.

WILD ASTER d’Anna Hogeland

A powerful portrait of an unforgettable woman with a talent for survival, whose life spans the early twentieth century, from a writer acclaimed for her “unwavering passion and insight” (Jess Walter, NYT bestselling author of The Cold Millions)

WILD ASTER
by Anna Hogeland
Bloomsbury, December 2026
(via DeFiore and Co.)

Mae Smith starts her life as a stolen good: her biological mother, Ida, kidnaps her from her adoptive parents, and Mae grows up on the run, constantly changing towns and names, never able to find a home. After her mother’s death, Mae is determined to live a different kind of life. But over the next half century, as she reinvents herself against the backdrop of the Depression and Second World War and pursues stability amid the personal upheavals of marriage and motherhood, she must reckon with the choices she’s made and life’s inexorable turns.

For readers of Zorrie by Laird Hunt, The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, and The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant, Wild Aster explores the price of security, the drive to be a different mother than your own, and the daily gains and losses that define who we become. Ultimately, Mae’s story challenges us to confront the choices we make for personal fulfillment and family obligation and the perseverance that even a seemingly ordinary life demands.

Anna Hogeland is the author of the novel The Long Answer (Riverhead, 2022). She is a psychotherapist in private practice, with an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work and an MFA from UC Irvine. Her essays have appeared in Literary Hub, Big Issue, Gloss Magazine, Romper, and elsewhere. She lives in Massachusetts.

FOUNDERING de Cameron Yarbrough

A manifesto for anyone who has risked everything, failed, and found the courage to start again. It celebrates the journeys of individuals with mental health conditions who succeeded because of these conditions, not despite them. It inspires those who feel marginalized to turn their weaknesses into strengths.

FOUNDERING:
How Silicon Valley’s Greatest Entrepreneurs Go Deep to Rise High
by Cameron Yarbrough
Grand Central Publishing, November 2026
(via DeFiore and Co.)

Cameron Yarbrough knows the best-kept secret in Silicon Valley: nobody takes that brilliant idea from the proverbial back of the napkin to the stratosphere without enduring painful growth and seismic psychological breakthroughs. As a therapist and coach, he has helped founders of the most successful startups in tech achieve the impossible without sacrificing their well-being in the process. Renowned figures like Garry Tan, the president of the famous startup incubator Y Combinator, Steve Huffman, the CEO of Reddit, and Justin Kan, cofounder of Twitch. Yarbrough not only witnessed their spectacular highs and desperate lows from the sidelines; he walked in their shoes when he himself started his own company. In this book, he offers that unique expertise and guidance to aspiring leaders everywhere.

FOUNDERING is about what happened behind the scenes to this generation of founders and how they learned what it takes to survive and thrive as business leaders and human beings in the brutal world of growth-stage startups. It is about the existential crises, breakdowns, and self-reinventions that turn out to be unavoidable features of the process – the emotional crucible that no entrepreneur can avoid, and that no would-be entrepreneur can afford not to master. It’s about the takeaways–secrets, lessons, and tools to help every leader redefine success on their own terms.

FOUNDERING is a manifesto for anyone who has risked everything, failed, and found the courage to start again. It celebrates the journeys of individuals with mental health conditions who succeeded because of these conditions, not despite them. It inspires those who feel marginalized to turn their weaknesses into strengths. In a world obsessed with success, this book dares to explore psychological crisis as the birthplace of resilience, innovation, and meaning. It is an invitation to anyone who is contemplating a bold move, in the thick of an entrepreneurial crisis, or ready to rise from the ashes to join the ranks of these elite founders.

Cameron Yarbrough is an executive coach, therapist, and entrepreneur who has worked with some of Silicon Valley’s most influential founders and leaders. He was invited to productize his approach by Silicon Valley’s famous tech incubator, Y Combinator. Now, Yarbrough is the co-founder and Executive Chair of Torch, a preferred coaching vendor of LinkedIn, Roche, Alphabet, FICO, AirBnB, Stripe, and many other companies. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Business Insider, Inc, and TechCrunch.

THE CARPENTER AND THE CATHEDRAL de Hank Silver

At once an insider account of the historic restoration and a celebration of craft and what the act of making and building reveals about being human in our modern world. For readers of Patrick Hutchison’s Cabin (St. Martin’s Press), Callum Robinson’s Ingrained (Ecco), and Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft (Penguin).

THE CARPENTER AND THE CATHEDRAL:
The Meaning of Craft and the Reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris
by Hank Silver
Viking, Spring 2028
(via DeFiore and Company)

Six hundred logs. When American carpenter Hank Silver arrived at a workshop in Normandy, he was surrounded by heaping piles of oak logs. His small, international team’s task was to hew all them by hand, using reproductions of medieval axes, into more than a thousand individual beams, then lay out and cut fifty-seven roof trusses and framing that would become the nave of the Notre-Dame de Paris. They had just eight months.

When fire engulfed the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral on April 15, 2019, few believed it could be restored to its former glory using the original materials and methods of the thirteenth century. But thanks to a small group of traditional craftsman, the restoration was indeed possible. THE CARPENTER AND THE CATHEDRAL: The Meaning of Craft and the Reconstruction of Notre-Dame de Paris, is Silver’s behind-the-scenes account of one of the most significant architectural restorations of all time. But it is so much more.

Hank Silver was the only American who worked on site at the cathedral, and his path to Notre-Dame was anything but traditional. Born and raised in an observant Jewish family in New York City, he came to carpentry in college when he happened upon a stash of woodworking books at his grandmother’s house. After graduating, he pursued carpentry and learned traditional timber framing—and what it means to work with one’s hands and with centuries-old tools that have been worn smooth by countless hands before. In captivating prose, he reflects on the connection between the maker and the materials, between craftsmanship and what endures.

For readers of Patrick Hutchison’s Cabin (St. Martin’s Press), Callum Robinson’s Ingrained (Ecco), and Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft (Penguin), THE CARPENTER AND THE CATHEDRAL is at once an insider account of the historic restoration and a celebration of craft and what the act of making and building reveals about being human in our modern world. 

Hank Silver is a master carpenter and the founder of Ironwood Timberworks. He built custom timber frame structures throughout New England for more than 10 years. Since 2018, he has been a member of the volunteer crew Carpenters Without Borders, whose mission is the restoration of world carpentry heritage and the transmission of traditional skills and techniques to future generations of craftspeople. Silver has been featured in two documentaries and was awarded the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s 2025 Arthur Ross Award in Artisanship & Craftsmanship. He has been featured in The New York TimesNational Geographic, and GQ and on CBS News, NBC’s Weekend Nightly News, and Good Day New York. This is his first book.