Julia Flynn Siler

Early life and career

Born in Palo Alto, California, Siler received a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Brown University in 1983, a master's from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 1985, and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management in 1991. She did additional postgraduate work at the London School of Economics.

The House of Mondavi

In 2007, Siler published The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, a nonfiction account of four generations of California's Mondavi family. The House of Mondavi concerns a repeating pattern of sibling conflict in a family wine business. The book details the 2004 board coup that led to the breakup and the forced sale of the publicly-traded Robert Mondavi company. The House of Mondavi revealed that patriarch Robert Mondavi's philanthropic gifts to the University of California at Davis and elsewhere had led to a personal financial crisis for the company, which was one of the factors leading to its $1 billion takeover.

The book was a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism in the category of business books in 2008. It was also a James Beard Foundation finalist that year in the category of books on wine and spirits. BusinessWeek picked it as one of the top ten business books of the year for 2007. It also received criticism for focusing on the salacious.

Lost Kingdom

In 2011, Siler published Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure, a narrative history of the overthrow of Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani. Lost Kingdom was a 2011 Northern California bestseller. It was also a New York Times bestseller.