Something Totally Different

Molly Stern

Founder and CEO of Zando

Molly Stern is a longtime editor and publisher, formerly at Penguin Random House, where she worked on countless award-winners and bestsellers including Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, and Becoming by Michelle Obama. Molly is now the founder and CEO of Zando, an innovative startup that partners with well-known figures like Sarah Jessica Parker and John Legend to launch new imprints, publish books, and connect them to audiences of readers.

(For full transparency: Open Book host David Steinberger is a board member of Zando.)

INTERVIEWED ON: June 11th, 2025

Books discussed:

I Am You by Victoria Redel

This “lush, sexy, absorbing novel” of historical fiction “brings to life two artists who are inextricably linked in passion and competition” (Melissa Febos, bestselling author of Girlhood)

The Librarians of Lisbon by Suzanne Nelson

The romance of Casablanca meets the spy world of Ian Fleming in this WWII love story for the ages.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The “mercilessly entertaining” (Vanity Fair) instant classic “about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships” (Lev Grossman, Time “One of the Best Books of the Decade”)—now featuring never-before-published deleted scenes

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control—from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.