Special Collections
Benetech’s Global Certified Accessible Titles
Description: Benetech’s GCA program is the first independent third-party EPUB certification to verify ebook accessibility. By creating content that is born accessible, publishers can meet the needs of all readers. Learn more: https://bornaccessible.benetech.org/
- Table View
- List View
Revolutionary Afghanistan
by Beverley MaleThis book, first published in 1982, examines the reality of the so-called revolution in Afghanistan. It focuses on the career of Hafizullah Amin, considered in the West as a near-genocidal mass murderer, intent on establishing a personal fiefdom in Afghanistan. However, this book argues that he was a man struggling against impossible odds to preserve his country’s independence and at the same time drag it into the twentieth century. He commanded such loyalty and support within the Afghanistan Communist Party and the armed forces that the Russians had to invade to get rid of him.
The People's Republics of Eastern Europe
by Jürgen TampkeThis book, first published in 1983, goes beyond the ‘black and white’ literature of many East–West observers to offer a more nuanced assessment of the achievements of the Eastern bloc countries of the early 1980s. It covers the emergence of ‘Eastern Europe’ from revolution and war, the politics and economics of the new countries and their relationships with the West.
The Executioner
by Chris CarterFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER THE CALLER Inside a Los Angeles church, on the altar steps, lies the blood-soaked body of a priest. Later, the forensic team discover that, on the victim's chest, the figure 3 has been scrawled in blood. At first, Detective Robert Hunter believes that this is a ritualistic killing. But as more bodies surface, he is forced to reassess. All the victims died in the way they feared the most. Their worst nightmares have literally come true. But how could the killer have known? And what links these apparently random victims? Hunter finds himself on the trail of an elusive and sadistic killer, someone who apparently has the power to read his victims' minds. Someone who can sense what scares his victims the most. Someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his twisted aim.PRAISE FOR CHRIS CARTER 'Gripping . . . Not for the squeamish' Heat 'A page turner' Express
Internal Communications
by Liam Fitzpatrick and Klavs ValskovGet internal communications right in your organization and the benefits are clear. Motivated staff, better financial performance, a strong external reputation and delighted customers are just a few of the reasons why getting your message over to staff effectively matters.Internal Communications explores what good practice in internal communications looks like, providing a no-nonsense approach to devising an internal communications strategy based on the authors' extensive experiences as consultants and in-house leaders in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. It provides a step-by-step guide to: -Building an internal communications team and plan -Devising messages and deciding which channels to use - Working with line managers and senior leaders -Researching and evaluating internal communications -Supporting change within an organizationSupported by easy to follow models, example explanations of the core theory, and case studies, Internal Communications provides students and internal communicators alike with the practical tools and advice they need to make a difference in an organization.
Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourtA Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela&’s Ashes is Frank McCourt&’s masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland—now with a new introduction by Patrick Radden Keefe. &“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.&” So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank&’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank&’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father&’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank&’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig&’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness. Angela&’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt&’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.
Endometriosis
by Nazar N. AmsoThis text offers an up-to-date, evidence-based overview of a challenging disease, which affects one in ten women and is often compounded by delayed diagnosis and significant impact on quality of life. The international authors, experts in their fields, propose new paradigms that will demystify the disease, expedite diagnosis, and manage it to the highest professional standard. The book will be of benefit to established practitioners and generalists in the field, as well as those in training; it is rich with illustrations and links to procedural videos.
Photovoltaic Thermal Passive House System
by Neha Gupta and Gopal Nath TiwariSustainable Advanced Solar Passive House provides a platform to disseminate knowledge regarding the basics of solar energy, heat transfer, and solar houses, including designing concepts. Apart from a brief introduction to solar physics and thermodynamics, the book primarily deals with the technical description of solar houses and associated concepts. Different types of photovoltaic modules and their integration with the buildings are discussed with case studies, including energy balance equations and fundamental energy matrices. It discusses concepts like energy matrices, solar passive heating/cooling, architecture design, low-cost building, energy/exergy analysis, building integrated photovoltaic, and energy conservation.
Let's Run Away
by Daniel MacIvorPeter is putting on a show. He’s a bit stressed. In the show, he will read from a manuscript. It’s a large manuscript, but don’t worry, he’s only going to read the parts about him, and there aren’t many. It’s a memoir written by someone who abandoned him twice—once as a baby and once when he was a young man of thirteen. This person has figured prominently in Peter’s life for over fifty years now, but judging by the memoir, he has not figured so much in theirs. So perhaps it’s going to be a very short show? Again, don’t worry, Peter has other skills which he will share. And if Peter can keep his cool, and if the people who work at the theatre can help him set everything up, and if the audience can just give him a little bit of their time and their attention and their silence, maybe he can tell everyone something about who we really are and who we are to others and who we might be to ourselves when we’re alone. And maybe that can make it all a little bit easier.
a million billion pieces
by David James BrockIt’s time to make every moment count. Sixteen-year-olds Pria and Theo—or as they know each other online, the aspiring opera singer PriaSoprano and outer-space aficionado Eagle19—have decided to have sex. There’s just one catch… they both have life-threatening genetic disorders that may cause them to explode from one another’s touch. But they won’t know what will happen until they try. Sick of being told what to do their whole lives, they rebel against their reality and meet at a motel. But while Pria is more or less accepting of her fate, Theo has hopes for the future, and what was planned as a simple meeting becomes much more intimate as they open up about their experiences. The fate of their lives comes down to one decision… This teen romance space opera explores our willingness to live, what it means to belong, and the necessity of emotional and physical relationships.
Mortified
by Amy RutherfordA woman runs into her former abuser and is surprised by the power he still holds over her. In an attempt to uncover the truth of what really happened between them, she recalls her adolescent self: a synchronized swimmer struggling to make sense of the world around her. Humorous and dark, Mortified explores sex, shame, and transformation and how we reckon with the traumatic experiences that have shaped us.
Before You Knew My Name
by Jacqueline BublitzWinner of Crime Debut and Readers&’ Choice Awards—Sisters in Crime Editors&’ Choice/Staff Pick by The New York Times Book Review &“A brave and timely novel.&” —Clare Mackintosh, internationally bestselling author of Hostage This is not just another novel about a dead girl. Two women—one alive, one dead—are brought together in the dark underbelly of New York City to solve a tragic murder.When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city&’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn&’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she&’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman&’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman. Alice is sure Ruby is the key to solving the mystery of her short life and tragic death. Ruby just wants to forget what she saw…but she can&’t seem to stop thinking about the young woman she found. If she keeps looking, can she give this unidentified Jane Doe the ending and closure she deserves? A &“heartbreaking, beautiful, and hugely important novel&” (Rosie Walsh, New York Times bestselling author), Before You Knew My Name doesn&’t just wonder whodunnit—it also asks who was she? And what did she leave behind?
Has Anyone Seen My Toes?
by Christopher BuckleyFrom the bestselling author of Thank You for Smoking and Make Russia Great Again comes a comic tour de force, the story of one man&’s spiraling journey through lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.During the pandemic, an aging screenwriter is holed up in a coastal South Carolina town with his beloved second wife, Peaches. He&’s been binge-eating for a year and developed a notable rapport with the local fast-food chain Hippo King. He struggles to work—on a ludicrous screenplay about a Nazi attempt to kidnap FDR and, naturally, an article for Etymology Today on English words of Carthaginian origin. He&’s told Peaches so often about the origins of the world mayonnaise that she&’s developed an aversion to using the condiment. He thinks he has Covid. His wife thinks he is losing his mind. In short, your typical pandemic worries. Things were going from bad to worse even before his doctor suggested a battery of brain tests. He knows what that means: dementia! But even in these scary times, there are plenty of things to distract him. His iPhone is fat-shaming him. He&’s been trying to read Proust and thinks the French novelist missed his true calling as a parfumier. And he&’s discovered nefarious Russian influence on the local coroner&’s race. Why is Putin so keen to control who decides who died peacefully and who by foul play in Pimento County? Could it be the local military base? Has Anyone Seen My Toes? is a hilarious romp through a time that has been anything but funny.
Rated X
by Maitland WardA celebrity memoir unlike any other, this is an empowering, sex-positive, behind-the-scenes look at both Hollywood and the porn industry. Perfect for fans of Pleasure Activism and How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.Maitland Ward got her start in acting as a teenager when she was cast in The Bold and the Beautiful, but it wasn&’t until she joined the later seasons of the sitcom Boy Meets World that she got her first taste of fame. As the loveable co-ed Rachel McGuire, Ward soon found herself being typecast as the good girl next door and was repeatedly denied darker, more intriguing roles. So she made a career change—one that required her to turn away from the Disney universe—and eventually established herself as one of the most-respected actresses in the porn industry today. Now, Ward reveals the ups and downs of her fascinating career, including personal stories from her time on one of the most beloved shows of the 1990s, in this anything but a run-of-the-mill memoir. By showing Hollywood and triple-X stardom in a whole new light, she offers a fresh and stirring perspective on the sex industry and &“champions the discovery of freedom in sexuality&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Ultimately a story of hope and triumph, this is a sharp and provocative look at a former Disney princess who found her fairy tale in porn.
Pay Up
by Reshma SaujaniThe founder of Girls Who Code and bestselling author of Brave, Not Perfect confronts the &“big lie&” of corporate feminism and presents a bold plan to address the burnout and inequity harming America&’s working women today.We told women that to break glass ceilings and succeed in their careers, all they needed to do is dream big, raise their hands, and lean in. But data tells a different story. Historic numbers of women left their jobs in 2021, resulting in their lowest workforce participation since 1988. Women&’s unemployment rose to nearly fifteen percent, and globally women lost over $800 billion in wages. Fifty-one percent of women say that their mental health has declined, while anxiety and depression rates have skyrocketed. In this urgent and rousing call to arms, Reshma Saujani dismantles the myth of &“having it all&” and lifts the burden we place on individual women to be primary caregivers, and to work around a system built for and by men. The time has come, she argues, for innovative corporate leadership, government intervention, and sweeping culture shift; it&’s time to Pay Up. Through powerful data and personal narrative, Saujani shows that the cost of inaction—for families, for our nation&’s economy, and for women themselves—is too great to ignore. She lays out four key steps for creating lasting change: empower working women, educate corporate leaders, revise our narratives about what it means to be successful, and advocate for policy reform. Both a direct call to action for business leaders and a pragmatic set of tools for women themselves, Pay Up offers a bold vision for change as America defines the future of work.
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
by Carolyn HuynhA GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST BEST FEEL-GOOD BOOK OF THE YEAR For fans of Amy Tan, KJ Dell&’Antonia, and Kevin Kwan, this &“sharp, smart, and gloriously extra&” (Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of The Last Story of Mina Lee) debut celebrates a family of estranged Vietnamese women who experiences mishaps and unexpected joy after a psychic makes a startling prediction about their lives. Everyone in Orange County&’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed. It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave her marriage for true love—so a fearsome Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never find love or happiness, and the Duong women would give birth to daughters, never sons. Oanh&’s current descendant Mai Nguyen knows this curse well. She&’s divorced, and after an explosive disagreement a decade ago, she&’s estranged from her younger sisters, Minh Pham (the middle and the mediator) and Khuyen Lam (the youngest who swears she just runs humble coffee shops and nail salons, not Little Saigon&’s underground). Though Mai&’s three adult daughters, Priscilla, Thuy, and Thao, are successful in their careers (one of them is John Cho&’s dermatologist!), the same can&’t be said for their love lives. Mai is convinced they might drive her to an early grave. Desperate for guidance, she consults Auntie Hua, her trusted psychic in Hawaii, who delivers an unexpected prediction: this year, her family will witness a marriage, a funeral, and the birth of a son. This prophecy will reunite estranged mothers, daughters, aunts, and cousins—for better or for worse. A multi-narrative novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.
Keya Das's Second Act
by Sopan DebA poignant, heartwarming, and charmingly funny debut novel about how a discovered box in the attic leads one Bengali American family down a path toward understanding the importance of family, even when splintered.Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his fifties, he finds himself isolated from his traditional Bengali community after a devastating divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn&’t spoken to his eldest daughter Mitali in months; and most painfully, he lives each day with the regret that he didn&’t accept his teenaged daughter Keya after she came out as gay. As the anniversary of Keya&’s death approaches, Shantanu wakes up one morning utterly alone in his suburban New Jersey home and realizes it&’s finally time to move on. This is when Shantanu discovers a tucked-away box in the attic that could change everything. He calls Mitali and pleads with her to come home. She does so out of pity, not realizing that her life is about to shift. Inside the box is an unfinished manuscript that Keya and her girlfriend were writing. It&’s a surprising discovery that brings Keya to life briefly. But Neesh Desai, a new love interest for Mitali with regrets of his own, comes up with a wild idea, one that would give Keya more permanence: what if they are to stage the play? It could be an homage to Keya&’s memory, and a way to make amends. But first, the Dases need to convince Pamela Moore, Keya&’s girlfriend, to give her blessing. And they have to overcome ghosts from the past they haven&’t met yet. A story of redemption and righting the wrongs of the past, Keya Das&’s Second Act is a warmly drawn homage to family, creativity, and second chances. Set in the vibrant world of Bengalis in the New Jersey suburbs, this debut novel is both poignant and, at times, a surprising hilarious testament to the unexpected ways we build family and find love, old and new.
A Warm Heart in Winter
by J.R. Ward#1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward is heating things up this winter with a holiday novel featuring some of her most iconic Black Dagger Brothers.Featuring one of the Black Dagger Brotherhood&’s most iconic couples, Blay and Qhuinn find themselves looking forward to their official mating ceremony. When tragedy strikes just before the happy event, all hope seems lost—and everyone in the Black Dagger Brotherhood rallies around the two of them. Will a freak winter storm bring the unthinkable, or will a warm heart in winter ensure that true love is not lost?
Sentient
by Jackie HigginsPerfect for fans of The Soul of an Octopus and The Genius of Birds, this &“revelatory book&” (Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author) explores how we process the world around us through the lens of the incredible sensory capabilities of thirteen animals, revealing that we are not limited to merely five senses.There is a scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. Research has shown that the extraordinary sensory powers of our animal friends can help us better understand the same powers that lie dormant within us. From the harlequin mantis shrimp with its ability to see a vast range of colors, to the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors; from the orb-weaving spider whose eyes recognize not only space but time, to the cheetah whose ears are responsible for its perfect agility, these astonishing animals hold the key to better understanding how we make sense of the world around us. &“An appealingly written, enlightening, and sometimes eerie journey into the extraordinary possibilities for the human senses&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred), Sentient will change the way you look at humanity.
The Drowning Kind
by Jennifer McMahonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Invited and The Winter People comes a chilling new novel about a woman who returns to the old family home after her sister mysteriously drowns in its swimming pool…but she&’s not the pool&’s only victim.Be careful what you wish for. When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it&’s just another one of her sister&’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother&’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister&’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined. In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives. A haunting, twisty, and compulsively readable thrill ride from the author who Chris Bohjalian has dubbed the &“literary descendant of Shirley Jackson,&” The Drowning Kind is a modern-day ghost story that illuminates how the past, though sometimes forgotten, is never really far behind us.
The Whispers
by Heidi PerksThe internationally bestselling author of Her One Mistake, hailed by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell as &“slick, gripping, and compelling,&” explores toxic relationships, dark secrets, and a twisted web of lies in an explosive new novel about a woman searching for her missing best friend. Anna loves Girls&’ Night with her friends. With the kids safely in bed, it&’s a chance for the women to let loose, enjoy some wine, and just laugh. But after one lively evening, Anna doesn&’t arrive for school drop-off the next morning—or the next, or the next. Everyone, especially her husband and young son, are frantic with worry but none more so than Grace, her childhood best friend. Grace is certain that someone is hiding the truth about Anna&’s unexplained disappearance. As rumors fly and accusations are whispered among neighbors, Grace decides to take matters into her own hands and find out what happened to Anna…or die trying.
Yellow Wife
by Sadeqa JohnsonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of House of Eve—a 2023 Reese&’s Book Club Pick! *A Best Book of the Year by NPR and Christian Science Monitor* Called &“wholly engrossing&” by New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Grissom, this &“fully immersive&” (Lisa Wingate, #1 bestselling author of Before We Were Yours) story follows an enslaved woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia.Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother&’s position as the estate&’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master&’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She&’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil&’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer&’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.
Stories from the Tenants Downstairs
by Sidik FofanaSet in a Harlem high rise, a stunning debut about a tight-knit cast of characters grappling with their own personal challenges while the forces of gentrification threaten to upend life as they know it.Like Gloria Naylor&’s The Women of Brewster Place and Lin Manuel Miranda&’s In the Heights, Sidik Fofana&’s electrifying collection of eight interconnected stories showcases the strengths, struggles, and hopes of one residential community in a powerful storytelling experience. Each short story follows a tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone&’s mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend&’s release from prison jeopardizes the life he&’s been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe&’s and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can&’t seem to escape the building&’s gravitational pull. We root for these characters and more as they weave in and out of each other&’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and blaze new paths forward for themselves and the people they love. Stories from the Tenants Downstairs brilliantly captures the joy and pain of the human experience and heralds the arrival of a uniquely talented writer.
No Filter
by Sarah FrierWinner of the 2020 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award * Finalist for SABEW'S Inaugural Best in Business Book Award In this &“sequel to The Social Network&” (The New York Times), award-winning reporter Sarah Frier reveals the never-before-told story of how Instagram became the most culturally defining app of the decade.&“The most enrapturing book about Silicon Valley drama since Hatching Twitter&” (Fortune), No Filter &“pairs phenomenal in-depth reporting with explosive storytelling that gets to the heart of how Instagram has shaped our lives, whether you use the app or not&” (The New York Times). In 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger released a photo-sharing app called Instagram, with one simple but irresistible feature: it would make anything you captured look more beautiful. The cofounders cultivated a community of photographers and artisans around the app, and it quickly went mainstream. In less than two years, it caught Facebook&’s attention: Mark Zuckerberg bought the company for a historic $1 billion when Instagram had only thirteen employees. That might have been the end of a classic success story. But the cofounders stayed on, trying to maintain Instagram&’s beauty, brand, and cachet, considering their app a separate company within the social networking giant. They urged their employees to make changes only when necessary, resisting Facebook&’s grow-at-all-costs philosophy in favor of a strategy that highlighted creativity and celebrity. Just as Instagram was about to reach a billion users, Facebook&’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg—once supportive of the founders&’ autonomy—began to feel threatened by Instagram&’s success. Frier draws on unprecedented access—from the founders of Instagram, as well as employees, executives, and competitors; Anna Wintour of Vogue; Kris Jenner of the Kardashian-Jenner empire; and a plethora of influencers worldwide—to show how Instagram has fundamentally changed the way we show, eat, travel, and communicate, all while fighting to preserve the values which contributed to the company&’s success. &“Deeply reported and beautifully written&” (Nick Bilton, Vanity Fair), No Filter examines how Instagram&’s dominance acts as lens into our society today, highlighting our fraught relationship with technology, our desire for perfection, and the battle within tech for its most valuable commodity: our attention.
Ghost Lover
by Lisa TaddeoFrom Lisa Taddeo, #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of Three Women and &“our most eloquent and faithful chronicler of human desire&” (Esquire), Ghost Lover is an electrifying collection of fearless and ferocious short stories.Behind anonymous screens, an army of cool and beautiful girls manage the dating service Ghost Lover, a forwarding system for text messages that promises to spare you the anguish of trying to stay composed while communicating with your crush. At a star-studded political fundraiser in a Los Angeles mansion, a trio of women compete to win the heart of the slick guest of honor. In a tense hospital waiting room, an inseparable pair of hard-partying friends crash into life&’s responsibilities, but the magic of their glory days comes alive again at the moment they least expect it. In these nine riveting stories—which include two Pushcart Prize winners and a finalist for the National Magazine Award—Lisa Taddeo brings to life the fever of obsession, the blindness of love, and the mania of grief. Featuring Taddeo&’s arresting prose that continues to thrill her legions of fans, Ghost Lover dares you to look away.
My Friend Anna
by Rachel DeLoache WilliamsSex and the City meets Catch Me if You Can in the astonishing true story of Anna Delvey, a young con artist posing as a German heiress in New York City—as told by the former Vanity Fair photo editor who got seduced by her friendship and then scammed out of more than $62,000.
Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel DeLoache Williams’s new friend Anna Delvey, a self-proclaimed German heiress, was worldly and ambitious. She was also generous—picking up the tab for lavish dinners at Le Coucou, infrared sauna sessions at HigherDOSE, drinks at the 11 Howard Library bar, and regular workout sessions with a celebrity personal trainer.
When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech at the five-star La Mamounia hotel, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa.
Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York.
Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been.
Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists.
With breathless pacing and in-depth reporting from the person who experienced it firsthand, My Friend Anna is an unforgettable true story of money, power, greed, and female friendship.