Nathaniel Rich: CLOUDTHIEF

Forget banks, casinos, museums—society’s most valuable treasure sits in the giant, anonymous data centers that power modern life. There, in endless rows of hard drives, lie all of the world’s personal and private truths, uploaded and saved. They wait unseen, unexploited, and, most critically, unguarded.

Nathaniel Rich's CLOUDTHIEF is a heist novel for a new era, the story of a climate journalist and off-the-grid artist who dive headfirst into a plan to steal secrets.

Join us for an evening with the author, where we'll discuss the many layers and stakes of this richly populated novel!

Order CLOUDTHIEF here!

Nathaniel Rich is the author of Cloudthief (2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). His short fiction has won the Emily Clark Balch Prize and been a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has also written two works of nonfiction: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Losing Earth is being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy.

Rich is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a frequent contributor to The Atlantic, Harper’s, and The New York Review of Books. A 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans.