NurtureShock
New Thinking About Children
(Twelve Publishers, September 2009)

The book leaps off from our New York Magazine articles on the cutting edge science of kids. It covers a variety of counterintuitive topics, and relates to all stages of childhood, from toddlers to teens. It will change how you think about the kids in your life, and make you rethink how you became who you are.

Why Do I Love These People?
Understanding, Surviving, and Creating Your Own Family
(paperback: Random House, 2006)
(hardcover Random House, 2005)

We all have an imaginary definition of a great family. We imagine what it would be like to belong to such a family. No fights over the holidays. No getting on one another’s nerves. Respect for individual identity. Mutual support, without being intrusive. So many people believe they are disqualified from having a better family experience, primarily because they compare their own family with the mythic ideal, and their reality falls short. Is that a fair standard to judge against?”

In the pages of Why Do I Love These People?, Po Bronson takes us on an extraordinary journey.

It begins on a river in Texas, where a mother gets trapped underwater and has to bargain for her own life and that of her kids.

Then, a father and his daughter return to their tiny rice-growing village in China, hoping to rekindle their love for each other inside the walls of his childhood home.

Next, a son puts forth a riddle, asking us to understand what his first experience of God has to do with his Mexican American mother.

Every step–and every family–on this journey is real.

Calling upon his gift for powerful nonfiction narrative and philosophical insight, Bronson explores the incredibly complicated feelings that we have for our families. Each chapter introduces us to two people–a father and his son, a daughter and her mother, a wife and her husband–and we come to know them as intimately as characters in a novel, following the story of their relationship as they struggle resiliently through the kinds of hardships all families endure.

Some of the people manage to save their relationship, while others find a better life only after letting the relationship go. From their efforts, the wisdom in this book emerges. We are left feeling emotionally raw but grounded–and better prepared to love, through both hard times and good time.

In these twenty mesmerizing stories, we discover what is essential and elemental to all families and, in doing so, slowly abolish the fantasies and fictions we have about those we fight to stay connected to.

In Why Do I Love These People?, Bronson shows us that we are united by our yearnings and aspirations: Family is not our dividing line, but our common ground.

What Should I Do with My Life?
The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question
(paperback: Ballantine Books 2005)
(hardcover: Random House, 2002)

What should I do with my life?

It’s a question many of us have pondered with frequency. Author Po Bronson was asking himself that very question when he decided to write this book—an inspiring exploration of how people transform their lives and a template for how we can answer this question for ourselves.

Bronson traveled the country in search of individuals who have struggled to find their calling, their true nature—people who made mistakes before getting it right. He encountered people of all ages and all professions—a total of fifty-five fascinating individuals trying to answer questions such as: Is a career supposed to feel like a destiny? How do I tell the difference between a curiosity and a passion? Should I make money first, to fund my dream? If I have a child, will my frustration over my work go away? Should I accept my lot, make peace with my ambition, and stop stressing out? Why do I feel guilty for thinking about this?

From their efforts to answer these questions, the universal truths in this book emerge. Each story in these pages informs the next, and the result is a journey that unfolds with cumulative power. Reading this book is like listening in on an intimate conversation among people you care about and admire. Even if you know what you should do with your life, you will find wisdom and guidance in these stories of people who found meaningful answers by daring to be honest with themselves.
Among them:

• The Pittsburgh lawyer who decided to become a trucker so he could savor the moment and be closer to his son.
   

• The toner-cartridge queen of Chicago, who realized that her relationships with men kept sabotaging her career choices.

In the words of Publishers Weekly: "Brimming with stories of sacrifice, courage, commitment and, sometimes, failure, the book will support anyone pondering a major life choice or risk without force-feeding them pat solutions."

The Nudist on the Late Shift
And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley
(paperback: Broadway, 2000)
(hardcover: Random House, 1999)

The Nudist on the Late Shift is the true story of a new generation at the proving point of their lives, written by the most exciting and authentic literary voice to emerge from Silicon Valley, Po Bronson.

This is a defining portrait of young people in the whirl of an information revolution and an international gold rush. Masses of entrepreneurs and tech wizards, immigrants and investors, dreamers and visionaries, are heading west to seek their fortune and a new destiny. In Bronson, they have found their troubadour.

Already hailed by The Village Voice Literary Supplement as "the most complete and empathetic portrait of the Valley so far," The Nudist on the Late Shift establishes Bronson as the first author to capture the spirit of this new mecca. Recently chosen by the VLS as one of 1999's "Writers on the Verge," Bronson has spent the past decade searching Silicon Valley for the best stories, several of which have been published in Wired. Now he has woven those stories together, taking us inside the world of the newcomers, brainiacs, salespeople, headhunters, utopians, plutocrats, and innovators who are transforming our culture.

Writes the VLS: "Bronson evocatively portrays the overwhelming unpredictability of life in the Valley: getting fired can be part of daily life. But with a zero unemployment rate, the wounded don't stay that way for long. Bronson is at his best describing this radically shifting environment, where everyday folk with the right idea and the stamina stand to make millions in a couple of years, skipping rungs on the career ladder at a mind-boggling pace. Bronson recognizes that Silicon Valley's boom is made up of small explosions, and The Nudist puts us at ground zero."

The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest
A Silicon Valley Novel
(Random House, 1997)

When he dazzled the literary establishment in March, 1995 with Bombardiers, a stunning debut novel that skewered greedy Wall Street bond traders and satirized the inner workings of high finance, readers were scrambling to buy futures on Po Bronson's career.

Now, Bronson unleashes his talent (and fury) on Silicon Valley and rips the top off the computer industry, tracking the routes of power, exposing the crisscrossed wiring, and poking fun at its obsolete components.

Lloyd Acheson's firm, Omega Logic, needs a next-generation chip to keep its stock price propped up. Hank Menzinger squandered his research lab's cash reserves in a failed IPO and needs Omega Logic's support to save his institution. But master chip designer Francis Benoit's last chip for Omega was dumbed-down by software, and he's vowed to never let it happen again.

New at the research lab is Andy Caspar, a young engineer who dreams of becoming a legendary "ironman" -- one of the handful of engineers (like those behind Netscape, Apple, and Intel) whose technological breakthroughs have secured them a place in history.

Andy begins work on a new project, not realizing the extent to which he's caught up in the power struggle of the older men. The story reveals the brutal, absurd side of the industry, as Andy pushes forth with his dream but is betrayed at every turn.

Bombardiers
(paperback: Random House, 2003)
(hardcover: Secker & Warburg 1995)

A brilliant novel for people who feel they have wasted their lives at a desk--a Catch-22 for Wall Street. A burned-out mortgage dealer dreams of quitting his job. But when the only person who can replace him mysteriously disappears, he is forced to choose between his promised payout and his long-anticipated freedom.