Very Nice

“A juicy tale of bad behavior.... Very Nice gets pretty mean—but gloriously so.” —Entertainment Weekly Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair, and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student’s sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries, and Rachel’s beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice. Becca Klein never thought she’d have a love affair so soon after her divorce, but when her daughter’s professor walks into her home, bringing with him an apricot standard poodle named Princess, she does, and the affair is ... a very bad idea. Zigzagging between the rarefied circles of Manhattan investment banking, the achingly self-serious MFA programs of the Midwest, and the private bedrooms of Connecticut, Very Nice is an audacious, addictive, and wickedly smart take on the way we live now.

At a loss for words, hockey puck? You can always quote Shakespeare... Or delve into this entertaining compendium of insults and verbal abuse, all couched in language of the most uplifting nature. Filled with common and not-so-common zingers that will both shock you and make you laugh your @$$! off. Includes: Exactly how to address individual mounds of foul, undigested lumps of donkey entrails That "F"-ing word and other intensives Many, many ways to refer to the part that goes over the fence last More euphemisms, synonyms, phrases and descriptions than you knew existed for sexual activities, proclivities, untoward incidents, accidents of nature and the beast with two backs Addressing the mentally incompetent, the cerebrally challenged, the absurdly bureaucratic, the impossibly rational and other instances of ineptitude, obfuscation or obstruction and much more!

“Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman are linguistic magicians, and their sparkling debut manages to expose the hollowness of well-being jargon while exploring, with tender care and precision, how we dare to move on after unspeakable loss . . . [They have] constructed a mirrored fun house, one that leads us down different paths, each masterfully tied up at the end, yet reflecting and refracting our own quirky selves.” —New York Times Book Review, An Editors' Choice “A very funny debut — and perhaps the most original office satire of the year.” —Washington Post For fans of Elinor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Severance: an offbeat, wryly funny debut novel that follows an eccentric product engineer who works for a hip furniture company where sweeping corporate change lands her under the purview of a startlingly charismatic boss who seems determined to get close to her at all costs . . . Ava Simon designs storage boxes for STÄDA, a slick Brooklyn-based furniture company. She’s hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in. But when Ava’s new boss—the young and magnetic Mat Putnam—offers Ava a ride home one afternoon, an unlikely relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up—and, despite her instincts, she becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn. The Very Nice Box is a funny, suspenseful debut—with a shocking twist. It’s at once a send-up of male entitlement and a big-hearted account of grief, friendship, and trust.

Desperate mother seeks… Samara Diamond thought she'd seen it all— until she read that personal ad. Now she just had to find out what desperate mothers were seeking these days…. A nice girl…to play decoy in a matchmaking scheme. Well, that role was fine with Sam. Men whose mommies found them brides were probably social nightmares, anyway. At least she'd get a good home-cooked meal out of the deal—not to mention quality family time, even if it wasn't hers. Then she met Ben—every woman's dream man. Especially a certain decoy's…

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR SELECTED FOR MALALA'S BOOK CLUB 'Tender, devastating, witty. And deeply true. Sweetbitter meets Normal People' MEG MASON, author of SORROW AND BLISS 'Haunting and bleakly compelling ... A writer of promise' SUNDAY TIMES 'An absorbing debut about sex and power' GUARDIAN 'Elegant and witty ... A precursor to great things' THE TIMES 'One of the buzziest debut novels this spring' VOGUE CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY VOGUE AND ESQUIRE _____________________________________________________________________________ A bitingly honest, darkly funny debut about love, sex, power and desire, by a major new British talent Anna is struggling to afford life in London as she trains to be a singer. During the day, she vies to succeed against her course mates with their discreet but inexhaustible streams of cultural capital and money, and in the evening she sings jazz at a bar in the City to make ends meet. It's there that she meets Max, a financier fourteen years older than her. Over the course of one winter, Anna's intoxication oscillates between her hard-won moments on stage, where she can zip herself into the skin of her characters, and nights spent with Max in his glass-walled flat overlooking the city. But Anna's fledgling career demands her undivided attention, and increasingly – whether he necessarily wills it or not – so does Max... _____________________________________________________________________________ 'Touching on feminism, power, finances and the pleasures and dangers of a new relationship, this book is an assured debut' CLAIRE FULLER, author of the Women's Prize-shortlisted UNSETTLED GROUND 'Imogen Crimp captures the glittering thrill of being young and choosing your own life with a dark, unflinching undercurrent of desire, power and control' JESSICA ANDREWS, author of SALTWATER 'A blazing, darkly funny debut that captures a young woman's search to find herself ... It has an honesty and tenderness that will stay with me for a long time' RACHEL JOYCE

In this dynamic debut novel, Sloan infuses a senior-year tradition with hilarity and irreverence, as a gay teenager endures a surreal, endless evening that not only turns his life upside down, but lands him in an unlikely romance.

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, a professor shares the lessons he's learned—about living in the present, building a legacy, and taking full advantage of the time you have—in this life-changing classic. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." —Randy Pausch A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have . . . and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.