Daily Archives: January 22, 2025

The week’s bestselling books, Jan. 26

Hardcover fiction1. James by Percival Everett (Doubleday: $28) An action-packed reimagining of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” 2. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove Press: $20) During the 1985 Christmas season, a coal merchant in an Irish village makes a troubling discovery. 3. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (Riverhead Books: $30) Two worlds collide when a teenager vanishes from her Adirondacks summer camp. 4. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead Books: $29) A woman upends her domestic life in this irreverent and tender novel. 5. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $29) Two grieving brothers come to terms with their history and the people they love. 6. Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix (Berkley: $30) In a home for pregnant young women in 1970 Florida, a book on witchcraft upends lives. 7. The Big Empty by Robert Crais (G.P. Putnam’s Sons: $30) A detective and his enigmatic partner race to find a terrifying, unidentified killer. 8. The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Henry Holt & Co.: $29) An unexpected wedding guest gets surprise help on her journey to starting anew. 9. The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (Knopf: $35) A love story and ode to books and the libraries that house them. 10. Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Scribner: $30) A seductive and cunning American woman infiltrates an anarchist collective in France. …Hardcover nonfiction1. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House: $30) A guide on how to stop wasting energy on things you can’t control. 2. Aflame by Pico Iyer (Riverhead Books: $30) An exploration of the power of silence and what it can show us about life, love and death. 3. The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World: $30) The National Book Award winner travels to three sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell, and the ones we don’t, shape our realities. 4. Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik (Scribner: $30) Eve Babitz’s diary-like letters provide a window into her fellow literary titan, Joan Didion. 5. The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Burgoyne (Illustrator) (Scribner: $20) The “Braiding Sweetgrass” author on gratitude, reciprocity and community, and the lessons to take from the natural world. 6. The State of Fire by Obi Kaufmann (Heyday Books: $28) A look at California’s relationship to fire and a hopeful vision of the state’s future. 7. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Penguin: $32) The music producer’s guidance on how to be a creative person. 8. The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides (Doubleday: $35) An epic account of Capt. James Cook’s final voyage.9. Cher by Cher (Dey Street Books: $36) The superstar reveals her true story in the first of a two-part memoir. 10. Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown & Co.: $32) The bestselling author reframes the lessons of his first book 25 years later. …Paperback fiction1. Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Grove Press: $17)2. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage: $18)3. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (Grand Central: $20)4. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (William Morrow Paperbacks: $19)5. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (Entangled: Red Tower Books: $21)6. North Woods by Daniel Mason (Random House Trade Paperbacks: $18)7. The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Hogarth: $17)8. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Vintage: $18)9. Babel by R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager: $20) 10. Circe by Madeline Miller (Back Bay: $19)…Paperback nonfiction1. The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan (Knopf: $35)2. On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Crown: $12)3. Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey (Crown: $20)4. The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga (Atria Books: $19)5. All About Love by bell hooks (Morrow: $17)6. The White Album Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18)7. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (Vintage: $17)8. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $18)9. The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (Vintage: $18)10. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (Amber-Allen: $13) More to Read

Did Meghan Markle Make Inquiries About Publishing Post-Harry Divorce Book?

Vanity Fair has really blown Meghan Markle’s skirt to the wind with their latest hard-hitting exposé on the Duchess.One of the hardest hitting subjects the publication touched on was the story about how Meghan Markle literally called in on a publishing house to gauge interest in a post-divorce book.You may roll your eyes and say that Meghan Markle has been divorced, but we know Trevor Engelson isn’t big fish enough, and well, that divorce was done and dusted years ago. Well, the premise of the pitch was how much the publication might pay to get a post-divorce book about Prince Harry. Shocking, right? Anyway, it never hurts to be prepared. However, some source is denying this, saying that the story sounds, well, wacky.Meghan Markle Tried To “Gauge Interest” In A “Potential” Post-divorce Story About Prince HarryAccording to Vanity Fair, a source revealed that the former American actress had reached out to a publishing house to know whether there would be interest in a post-Harry divorce piece. “This story, which a person with knowledge confirms the broad details of, was that Meghan’s team had a conversation with a publishing house to gauge interest in the idea for a potential book.”The concept, “for which there was no written or formal proposal, was post-divorce. It was not a general book on life after marital dissolution, or one about Meghan’s past experience.Meghan was married to producer Trevor Engelson from 2011 to 2014. This book—this notion of a book, really—might center on a post-Harry divorce. Not that there was actually one in the works!,” the report added.“Just…if this a priori divorce ever came to be, would this publisher theoretically be interested in a book that took place in its aftermath?” If this really happened, I want to know the reply of the other person on the line, cause, wow.[embedpost postid=”515108″]Source Denies Meghan Markle Tasted Waters On A post-Harry Divorce StoryFollowing the report, another source quickly denied the claims, saying, “If that’s true to any degree, she would have been approached and not vice versa. No offer was ever made, and no manuscript was produced. After all: There was no divorce.”It’s important to note that the Sussexes are under a four-book deal with Penguin Random House, and Meghan Markle has only had a children’s book released.Neither Prince Harry nor Meghan Markle have commented on the story so far.Be sure to catch up on everything happening with The Royal Family right now. Come back here often for all The Royal Family spoilers, news, and updates.[embedded content]

Book Review: Infected – A Candid Look at VirusTotal’s Birth and Legacy

How does a kid go from tinkering with a ZX Spectrum in a small town in Málaga, Spain, to selling a global cybersecurity service to Google? That’s the question Bernardo Quintero delightfully answers in a new book that feels like you’re sitting down with an old friend who has some pretty cool stories to tell. 

Quintero, one of the founding fathers of VirusTotal, lays it all out with wit, candor, and just enough irreverence to make ‘Infected: From Side Project to Google – The Journey behind VirusTotal’ a juicy read for first-time entrepreneurs and anyone in the threat intelligence space.

When Quintero asked if I’d fact-check any ‘lost-in-translation’ things before the English-language version shipped, I was hesitant, guessing it would be another one of those dry business how-to books. Digging in, I found Infected (ISBN 8409683660) to be an account that is more a behind-the-scenes tour of the life of a young boy fixated on computers, software code and scribbling notes on viruses. 

This obsession eventually leads to founding Hispasec, a small but pioneering pen-test outfit in Spain, an ‘accidentally on purpose’ passion project that would become the industry’s authoritative database for malware hunting and threat intelligence.

For security professionals, the real heart of Infected comes in the chapters “VirusTotal: The Origin of the Idea” and “The Birth of VirusTotal.” Quintero vividly recounts how a personal itch to streamline malware scanning blossomed into a free, multi-engine tool that essentially transformed the way malware hunters collect and analyze data. Suddenly, a scrappy European firm was thrust into the global spotlight — one that would ultimately reshape threat intel research. 

It’s worth noting that VirusTotal just marked its 20th anniversary — a milestone that underscores how entrenched Quintero’s creation is in CTI workflows. 

One of the book’s most entertaining sections chronicles VirusTotal’s courtship by major players, including CrowdStrike long before it became a household name. Quintero describes CrowdStrike founders Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz traveling to Malaga and shacking up at a basic three-star hotel to attempt a VirusTotal acquisition.

The courtship appeared to strain relationships inside VirusTotal and culminated with Kurtz sending a password-protected PDF containing an offer and pressuring Quintero to join a Skype video call to get the password. Believing it was a negotiation ruse to see his visual reaction to the offer, Quintero stalled for enough time to launch a brute-force attack against the ZIP file to peek at CrowdStrike’s bid.

Almost simultaneously, Google TAG founder Mike Wiacek (who would go on to create Chronicle and Stairwell) got wind of the CrowdStrike offer and escalated the opportunity all the way up to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Within a day, Google made its move and gave the company three hours to respond. The rest is history.Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

If there’s one knock on Infected, it’s what Quintero doesn’t share — the nitty-gritty details of integrating with Google post-acquisition. While the book provides a riveting backstory of how VirusTotal came to be and how it landed inside the Google ecosystem, it stops short of illuminating the corporate and cultural hurdles that must have arisen afterward. 

Particularly after 20 years of operation, some readers might crave insight into how the transition from scrappy independent operation to corporate subsidiary affected VirusTotal’s community ethos and core mission. There’s little mention of how commercial demands and Google’s internal processes might have reshaped the original spirit of open sharing. 

Was there tension between staying true to a community-driven tool and the monetization imperatives of a tech titan? Did Quintero deliberately omit these details to stick to a pre-acquisition timeline? Or did Google’s PR gatekeepers encourage self-censorship?  Quintero teases us with the story of signing on the dotted line, but never quite reveals what happened once Google got involved.

How did corporate structure shape — or possibly dilute — VirusTotal’s original community-driven mission? Was Quintero ever caught between profit-driven directives and the open spirit he fostered from the beginning? Is this still a controversial topic?

Where Infected excels is in sharing the colorful, human side of the cybersecurity industry, through the lens of hackers in Spain. Quintero is refreshingly honest about everything from interpersonal drama to small-town logistical challenges. There’s the early objections to data-sharing and the comical episode of Trend Micro pulling its antivirus engine from VirusTotal — only to slink back asking to rejoin and being pushed to the back of the queue. 

Despite that gap, Infected remains a must-read for anyone in cybersecurity. If you’re drawn to the behind-the-scenes hustle of hacker-led entrepreneurs and the evolution of what is now a cornerstone of threat intelligence, this book offers a candid look at how a simple idea — scanning files with multiple AV engines — created a global phenomenon. 

Perhaps, in a future sequel or anniversary edition, we’ll finally get that peek behind Google’s closed doors.

Related: Why Google Acquired VirusTotal

Related: Google Acquires VirusTotal

Related: Google Debuts New Security Products, Hyping AI and Mandiant Expertise

Related: VirusTotal Hacking Offers a Supercharged Version of Google Hacking