Go to university and get a degree they day they tell you, it is the key to a successful, happier, wealthier future but before you know it university is behind you and the only job you can get is mind-numbing office admin that you could have mastered at 14. Welcome to Weblands. There's Kim, who loves being pregnant for the attention, Ruth, who works all hours and clings to old Secret Santa presents and the boss who dresses like someone in a health and safety film and has a personality as blank as a piece of 80gsm A4.

In Everybody Knows, William Chaloupka scrutinizes the cynicism that is in our common condition, examining both its uses in the politics of backlash and resentment and its surprisingly positive aspects.'

In this “dazzling” (New York Times Book Review) mystery from an Edgar Award winning author, a fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast. A New York Times Best Crime Book of the Year • A NYTBR Editors' Choice Selection • An ABA January 2023 Indie Next List Pick • Recommended by New York Times Book Review • NPR/Fresh Air • Wall Street Journal • Washington Post • LA Times • CrimeReads • The Boston Globe • South Florida Sun Sentinel • Alta Online • Lit Hub• Kirkus Reviews• Publishers Weekly• NBC/TODAY and many more! Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA’s most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls “The Beast.” They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast’s lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. It takes her on a roving neon joyride through a Los Angeles full of influencers pumped full of pills and fillers; sprawling mansions footsteps away from sprawling homeless encampments; crooked cops and mysterious wrecking crews in the middle of the night. Edgar Award-winner Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows is addicting and alarming, a “juggernaut of a novel” and “an absolute tour de force.” It is what the crime novel can achieve in the modern age: portray the human lives at the center of vast American landscapes, and make us thrill at their attempts to face impossible odds. "The book everybody's been waiting for" —Michael Connelly "An absolute tour de force"—S. A. Cosby "The best mystery novel I've read in years" —James Patterson

America is corrupted, and everybody knows it. In this blistering book, Sarah Chayes brings years of experience analysing corruption in the developing world to probing her home country, finding that the model fits too closely for comfort. US kleptocratic networks have bent the main government powers to serve their own interests, not the citizens', with dizzying results--from egregious Supreme Court decisions to the pillaging of the defence budget, public land grabs to Big Pharma's capture of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the repeated financial meltdowns of the past forty years.Chayes places America's acute corruption within a broad historical context, going back to the invention of money itself. She shows that corruption today, far from just acts committed by disreputable individuals to line their pockets, is the standard mode of operation for sophisticated networks crossing political, ideological and national boundaries. Even the Trump administration's venality is more a symptom of a widespread trend than an aberration.When corruption takes hold, the results are devastating: social upheaval, terror and extremism, mass migration and environmental devastation. Searching and unflinching, Everybody Knows helps readers everywhere envision ways to pull in the reins on a rigged system, through individual, collective and political action.

The live album Can't Forget: A Souvenir of the Grand Tour will be released in May and is taken from his Old Ideas Tour. Lavishly illustrated, respected journalist Harvey Kubernik charts Leonard Cohen's extraordinary career in detail, placing his literary and musical achievements within the context of his life. From his beginnings as a writer and poet, through his classic albums of the sixties and seventies up to his triumphant recent tours, every stage of Cohen's remarkable life is expertly analysed. Includes more than 200 photos and the thoughts, memories and comments of those who have both worked with him and the many who have been inspired by this most unique of artists

In the hard-edged tradition of Hubert Selby Jr., Daniel Woodrell, and Donald Ray Pollock, and with the fresh, complex humanity of Breaking Bad and Reservoir Dogs, a blistering debut collection that unsparingly confronts the extreme, brutal parts of the human heart. A man runs away from his grave and into a maelstrom of bullets and fire. A Hollywood fixer finds love over the corpse of a dead celebrity. A morbidly obese woman imagines a new life with the jewel thief who is scheming to rob the store where she works. A man earns the name “Mad Dog” and lives to regret it. Denizens of the shadows who live outside the law—from the desolate meth labs of the Ozark Mountains to the dog-fighting rings of Detroit to the lavish Los Angeles mansions of the rich and famous—the characters in Love and Other Wounds all thirst for something seemingly just beyond their reach. Some are on the run, pursued by the law or propelled relentlessly forward by a dangerous past that is disturbingly close. Others are searching for a semblance of peace and stability, and even love, in a fractured world defined by seething violence and ruthless desperation. All are bruised, pushed to their breaking point and beyond, driven to extremes they never imagined. Crackling with cinematic energy, raw and disquieting yet filled with pathos and a darkly vital humor, Love and Other Wounds is an unforgettable debut from an electrifying new voice.

In this “tale of toxic friendship at its most riveting” (People), a young woman finds herself inexorably drawn to repeating the worst mistakes of her past. “Masterly, mendacious, and a total thrill ride . . . Not since a certain Mr. Ripley have I been so consumed in another’s covetous desires.”—Justin Torres, bestselling author of We the Animals At age thirty, Rose is fierce and smart, both self-aware and singularly blind to her power over others. After moving to New York, she is unexpectedly swallowed up by her past when she reunites with Lacie, the former best friend she betrayed in high school. Captivated once again by her old friend’s strange charisma, Rose convinces Lacie to let her move in, and the two fall into an intense, uneasy friendship. While tutoring the offspring of Manhattan’s wealthy elite, Rose works on a novel she keeps secret—because it stars Lacie and details the betrayal that almost turned deadly. But the difference between fiction and fact, past and present, begins to blur, and Rose soon finds herself increasingly drawn to Lacie’s boyfriend, exerting a sexual power she barely understands she possesses, and playing a risky game that threatens to repeat the worst moments of her and Lacie’s lives. Sharp-witted and wickedly addictive, Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is a uniquely dark entry into the canon of psychologically rich novels of friendship, compulsive behavior, and the dangerous reverberations of our actions, both large and small.

Delving into the concept of identity, this gripping novel tells the story of one man's complex entanglement with an elite and powerfully wealthy family. Written in forceful and poetic prose, this provocative tale takes an honest look at class and the familial bonds that can both protect and destroy.

A romantic comedy with an unforgettable cast of characters (and way more laughs than any episode of American Idol), perfect for fans of Pitch Perfect. Meet Magnolia. Her father's dead, her boyfriend's ditched her to commit himself more fully to surfing, and her mother's depressed because she can't get cast on The Real Housewives of Orange County. All Magnolia wants is to reinvent herself. Meet Ford. Half his family is in jail, the other half probably should be, he shoplifted his way into a job at a record store, and his brother pawned his 1953 Telecaster for a quick buck. All Ford wants is to reinvent himself. Ford, meet Magnolia. When the two teens are cast in Spotlight, a reality TV singing competition, both see it as their chance to start anew. With each episode, as they live together in a Hollywood Hills mansion and sing their hearts out, Ford and Magnolia fall in love. But how genuine can that love be when a television audience is watching their every move—and when their pasts are catching up them so much faster than they can run?

What is the reason for this book? I never wanted to write one but I believe all through our lives we feel like we should do something but we never follow through and then we say to ourselves, gee I wish I did that, bought that, sold that, didn’t do that. So I followed through with what I felt I should do and it doesn’t matter about the end result. If you don’t take the first step, forget about the second. If you just read this I believe it will speak to you. The other reason I wrote this book is to get people to use the brain they were given and the use of wisdom and common sense. The definition of common sense is, “sound and prudent judgement based on a simple perception of the situation of facts,” or as my father would say, “use the brain God gave you.” Today it is so easy to find answers to questions that are just a click away. There is a story about Moses and the burning bush in the Bible. The story goes Moses saw the bush burning but it wasn’t being consumed so he took a step closer to see what was happening and when he did, he heard a voice, it was the direction for the second step. May this be the first step to your second, Wisdom and Common Sense.