Reading: it’s not just for tweets anymore. Across the board, Crooked Media Reads will explore politics, current events and activism, narratives on culture and policy, memoir, pop culture, history, and investigative journalism from a wide and diverse range of perspectives, and in more than 240 characters. Our imprint is actively acquiring both nonfiction and fiction as well as books for children and young readers and expects to announce more titles soon.
A note from the Crooked founders
“We are so excited to be launching Crooked Media Reads. We know our audience of passionate engaged dweebs loves reading and they’ve questioned if we’d ever do more with books than just using them as background props to seem smart on Zoom. Turns out the answer is yes. We can’t wait to point listeners to brilliant authors telling stories and breaking down issues in ways that are inspiring, challenging, and entertaining. And we’re thrilled to be working with Zando to help us lift up those voices.”
- Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor
First books coming 2023
Mobility by Lydia Kiesling
Coming August 1, 2023
A propulsive novel about class, power, politics, and desire by the celebrated author of The Golden State.
The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan living with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s eyes, we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, and hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. Both geopolitical exploration and domestic coming-of-age novel, Mobility is a propulsive and challenging story about class, power, politics, and desire told through the life of one woman—her social milieu, her romances, her unarticulated wants. Mobility deftly explores American forms of complicity and inertia, moving between the local and the global, the personal and the political, and using fiction’s power to illuminate the way a life is shaped by its context.
Available August 1, 2023
Untitled by Ema O'Connor
Thrilled to announce our latest acquisition for Crooked Media Reads, which will publish in Spring 2024! Investigative journalist and longtime BuzzFeed News reproductive rights, gender, and politics staff writer Ema O’Connor’s untitled book is an urgent work of narrative nonfiction that introduces readers to the precarious landscape of American reproductive justice and privacy and the compelling people at the forefront of this new reality, in the vein of bestsellers such as EVICTED, DOPESICK, and THREE WOMEN.
About Zando
Launched October 2020, Zando is an independent publisher that leverages the influence of high-profile cultural figures, platforms and institutions to launch imprints. Founder and CEO Molly Stern has published multiple award-winning, genre-defining bestsellers, including Becoming by Michelle Obama, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Zando is founded on her belief in the essential value of books, the enduring influence of great stories and powerful ideas, and the need for literary diversity.
For more information on Zando and its approach to publishing, visit www.zandoprojects.com.
Books: the podcasts you can stare at.
