In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free of the government's watchful eye. It wasn't long before the media got wind of the new website where anyone - not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers - could buy and sell contraband detection-free.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty - a 20-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre - took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. With an original voice that combines fearless curiosity and mordant wit, Caitlin tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters, gallows humor, and vivid characters (both living and very dead).

While he's not quite a household name, most people would consider H. Jon Benjamin, the voice-actor star of Archer and Bob's Burgers (and a sentient can of mixed vegetables in 2015's Wet Hot American Summer) a comedy show business success. But he'd like to remind everyone that as great as success can be, failure is also an option. In a hilarious, self-deprecating memoir, Jon lays out some of his many failures in all areas of life, from Work ("wherein I'm unable to deliver a sizzling fajita") to Family ("wherein a trip to PF Chang's fractures a family").

Ever since he was small, John Robison had longed to connect with other people, but by the time he was a teenager, his odd habits, an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes, had earned him the label "social deviant". No guidance came from his mother or his father. It was no wonder he gravitated to machines, which could, at least, be counted on.

In 2008, Kevin Matthews, a well-known ABC and CBS radio personality in Chicago, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Broken Mary is Matthews' story of his early years in radio and stand-up comedy, his successful career, his struggle with MS, his awakening to the dignity of women, and, importantly, his chance encounter with a broken statue of Mary left next to a dumpster and all that happened as a result.

From zeniths of ecstasy and through valleys of darkness, one man’s journey leads him across a colorful landscape of strange adventures, and into the depths of truth that we all eventually seek. After attempts to escape the troubles of his mysterious past through sex, drugs, and violence; things end up in ruin. But then, a series of profound mystical experiences compels him along the path of self-knowledge. An unfoldment of the spiritual sciences opens up before him and leads the way to realization and lasting happiness.

Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle-class neighborhood on Detroit’s east side during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic. An honor roll student and a natural leader, he dreamed of becoming a doctor—but at age eleven, his parents’ marriage began to unravel, and beatings from his mother worsened, which sent him on a downward spiral. He ran away from home, turned to drug dealing to survive, and ended up in prison for murder at the age of nineteen, full of anger and despair.

Picking up her story in the late '60s at age 21, Cathy whisks through seven years and three countries. Whether reciting verse in the classrooms of the University of Oxford, arranging a date with Jimi Hendrix, teaching inner-city kids literature, rooming with a major drug dealer, falling in love, or working in a psychiatric hospital, Cathy determinedly blazes her own trail through all the passion and uncertainty that comes with the cusp of adulthood.

World renowned and critically acclaimed Hip-Hop artist, Malice of the Clipse had achieved what many would consider the "America Dream". Coming from modest beginnings in Virginia Beach to acquiring a life of splender and luxury, it would seem to any "outsider looking in" that things could not be anymore complete. With a beautiful family, big home, sport cars, notoriety, and the respect of his community, who could have guessed the popular rapper was dealing with matters of life, both physical and spiritual.

In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.

There is only one Wright Thompson. He is, as they say, famous if you know who he is: his work includes the most-read articles in the history of ESPN (and it's not even close) and has been anthologized in the Best American Sports Writing series ten times, and he counts John Grisham and Richard Ford among his ardent admirers. But to say his pieces are about sports, while true as far as it goes, is like saying Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is a book about a cattle drive.

When the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, Welles Crowther's parents had no idea what happened to him. In the unbearable days that followed, they came to accept that he would never come home. But the mystery of his final hours persisted. Eight months after the attacks, however, Welles' mother read a news account from several survivors, who said they and others had been led to safety by a stranger carrying a woman on his back down nearly 20 flights of stairs.

While Clint Harp is now known as Chip and Joanna Gaines’s go-to table maker on Fixer Upper and a nationally acclaimed artisan, his life has not always been the DIY dream we see on the show. Ten years ago, he played the role of what he thought was a good husband, father, and provider, dutifully working at a sales job that came with a healthy paycheck. Yet he kept coming back to his unfilled dream of building furniture. With the support of his wife, the encouragement of a mentor, and a life full of lessons, he finally took the leap, quit his job and set out on a quest to become a carpenter.

From the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next. Joaquin, the host, slowly he finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio.

At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.

At the age of 20, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry-level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son.

As a young boy, Bob had been drawn to the property, and, just when the family decided to move back to Brentwood, it went up for sale. Without a second thought, they purchased the house that Bob had always dreamed of owning. But the family soon began experiencing strange phenomena - objects moving on their own, ghostly footsteps, unsettling moaning sounds - that gradually increased in violence, escalating to physical assaults and, most disturbingly, bleeding walls.

His assignment from Satan was to kill Pastor Craig Groeschel. Today he sits on the front row of that pastor's church. For twenty years of his life, Michael Leehan lived and worked for Satan. At age 33, he made a decision to serve the darkness that he felt had consumed his life, but instead of making things easier, it began a steeper downward spiral replete with ritualistic cuttings, blood sacrifices, jail time, and job loss.

David Wojnarowicz was an abused child, a teen runaway who barely finished high school, but he emerged as one of the most important voices of his generation. His circle of East Village artists moved into the national spotlight just as the AIDS plague began its devastating advance, and as right-wing culture warriors reared their heads. Fire in the Belly is the untold story of a polarizing figure at a pivotal moment in American culture - and one of the most highly acclaimed biographies of the year.

The China Lake missile range is located in a huge stretch of the Mojave Desert, about the size of the state of Delaware. It was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper's parents, her sister, and - when she needed summer jobs - herself.

It will take more than angels and demons to stop him. Reporter Spencer Finch is embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left to him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction.

Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.

An inventor, adventurer, entrepreneur, collector, and entertainer, and son of legendary scientist-astronaut Owen Garriott, Richard Garriott de Cayeux has been behind some of the most exciting undertakings of our time. A legendary pioneer of the online gaming industry - and a member of every gaming Hall of Fame - Garriott invented the multi-player online game, and coined the term "Avatar" to describe an individual's online character. In this fascinating memoir, Garriott invites listeners on the great adventure that is his life.

In this extraordinary true story, the haunting of a Long Island household forces a respected writer and editor to reevaluate the mysteries of life and death as he struggles with the frightening truths of his childhood home and his town’s past.

From award-winning journalist David Kushner, Alligator Candy is a reported memoir about family, survival, and the unwavering power of love. 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 store for candy, and never returned.

The creator of the dancing bear logo and designer of the Wall of Sound for the Grateful Dead, Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known by his nickname, Bear, was one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that changed both America and the world during the 1960s. Owsley's high octane rocket fuel enabled Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters to put on the Acid Tests. It also powered much of what happened on stage at Monterey Pop.

Imagine a town where the people perpetually live in the 1950s, a place where time has all but stopped and where everyone loves his family, job, and life. In this strange place, only a select few people ever leave the city limits, and even then they leave reluctantly. This is what 15-year old Benjamin Granault faces as, through a string of amazing events, he finds himself living in a town where he can never talk about modern technology or current events.

As a hopeless and struggling indie rock musician, Ray Goldman's best chance of discovering any beauty and purpose in his dysfunctional life will come only when he ceases to struggle against life itself. Scale chronicles Ray Goldman’s journey downward through the adversarial trials that sometimes prove necessary in facilitating an eventual ascent into truth and happiness. The odd chapters of the novel find Ray, now a 31-year-old guitar player, seeking fulfillment in the wake of a life-altering tragedy.

In a world where an anti-aging cure is available worldwide, immortality comes with its own unique problems. John Farrell is about to get "The Cure". Old age can never kill him now. The only problem is, everything else still can.

By age 12, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as that culture claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.