"A Star is Bored is an absolute knockout. Riotously funny and wickedly tender." — Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones and the Six "Wildly funny and irreverent... Lane’s writing lifts the novel far above its gossamer Hollywood setting, suffusing [the novel] with a complex sensitivity." - The New York Times Book Review A hilariously heartfelt novel influenced in part by the author’s time assisting Carrie Fisher. People Magazine Best Book of Summer 2020 - Named a Must-Read Summer book by Town & Country - Named One of the 14 Best Books of Summer 2020 by Harper's Bazaar - One of Library Journal's 2020 "Titles to Watch" - One of the 30 Best Beach Reads According to Parade Magazine She needs an assistant. He needs a hero. Charlie Besson is tense and sweating as he prepares for a wild job interview. His car is idling, like his life, outside the Hollywood mansion of Kathi Kannon, star of stage and screen and People magazine’s Worst Dressed list. She's an actress in need of assistance, and he's adrift and in need of a lifeline. Kathi is an icon, bestselling author, and award-winning movie star, most known for her role as Priestess Talara in a blockbuster sci-fi film. She’s also known in another role: Outrageous Hollywood royalty. Admittedly so. Famously so. Chaotically so, as Charlie quickly discovers. Charlie gets the job, and his three-year odyssey is filled with late-night shopping sprees, last-minute trips to see the aurora borealis, and an initiation to that most sacred of Hollywood tribes: the personal assistant. But Kathi becomes much more than a boss, and as their friendship grows Charlie must make a choice. Will he always be on the sidelines of life, assisting the great forces that be, or can he step into his own life's leading role? Laugh-out-loud funny, and searingly poignant, Byron Lane's A Star is Bored is a novel that, like the star at its center, is enchanting and joyous, heartbreaking and hopeful.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller! A Good Morning America* Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR! Named a Notable Book of the Year by the Washington Post! “Historical fiction at its best!”* A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray. In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American. The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

Mr Rolf is a disabled man who used to be a tyrannical college principal. Due to his recent disabilities has been forced to advertise for a personal assistant. An applicant arrives who seems to have all the necessary qualifications for the post and is taken on for a trial period. The story of the personal assistant is interspersed with flashbacks from another story, the story of Jerry Marshall, a left-wing English lecturer who used to work under Rolf. Marshall has apparently reached the lowly zenith of his career and is going through a mid-life crisis, trying to make a mark by writing novels in his spare time but none have yet been published. He is persuaded by a colleague to try for a position as Head of Department but things go terribly wrong for him when one of his own ex-students is awarded the post. In a fit of drunken despair and wanting to succeed at something in life, he persuades the college secretary to make a copy of one of his manuscripts on the college photocopier. Needless to say, she is caught by Rolf, who holds a kangaroo court and, without going into the whys and wherefores of the case, dismisses Marshall from his post. The dismissal is but one of a series of misadventures which are about to befall Marshall : fed up with his drinking and non-appearance, his wife then decides to ask him to leave and he begins a spiraling descent into the lowest echelons of society. Halfway through the film the personal assistant has taken Rolf for a walk in his wheelchair along a cliff path when the assistant’s mobile phone rings. He answers it and Rolf hears him use a different name – the name “Marshall” (the name of the man he fired) In the second half Rolf realises the danger he is in, as Marshall shows him the depths to which he sunk as a result, he believes, of his boss’s earlier decision to sack him, losing his wife, his family and finally becoming a mumbling, incoherent down-and-out Marshall has obviously come back for revenge but at the end the tables are turned when Rolf realizes that Marshall’s arrival is actually a blessing in disguise. He urges Marshall to do the deed, to release him from the shackles of his disability and send him tumbling over the cliff but Marshall then realizes that the worst revenge he can take on Rolf is to leave him in his disabled state to suffer in his final days.

You've finally finished your personal statement and it's perfect! There's just one thing to consider before hitting the "send" button - will it meet the admission team's expectations? How will you know? CASPA guidelines are vague - "Write a brief statement expressing your motivation or desire to become a physician assistant." School websites aren't generally more helpful. Do they want to hear that you've dreamed of becoming a PA since you were five and loved your toy stethoscope? Are they interested in your volunteer work at a homeless shelter? Will it help that you've been a science nerd since 9th grade Biology? How should you tell your story? Should it read like a textbook, a novel or something in between? The fact is there hasn't been much guidance. Until now. Admissions directors and faculty from PA programs across the country have shared their thoughts on personal statements - what they hope to see, what they wish they'd never see, and tips to make an essay shine. When compiling this book, we realized that access to insider information is just the first step to writing a winning personal statement. That's why we teach you everything you need to know about essay writing, from form to finesse, with step-by-step tips and examples. This is your all-in-one guide to writing the ideal personal statement for Physician Assistant programs anywhere in the country.

Real life tools and advice for every professional assistant and their high-powered employers. A first-hand look at the world of a celebrity assistant, and its application to the larger realm of all professional assistants.

Assistant, you are a leader. As an assistant, you constantly face obstacles that hold you back from accomplishing your career goals. Whether it's a job change, shifting deadlines, a micromanaging executive, a toxic co-worker, a high-pressure project, or an intense negotiation with a vendor, the administrative profession is not for the faint of heart. If you're looking to maintain the status quo and be "just an assistant," this book is not for you. But, if you want the confidence and ability to conquer the challenges that most try to avoid, then you're in the right place. The Leader Assistant outlines four pillars-embody the characteristics, employ the tactics, engage in relationships, and exercise self-care-that will help you rediscover your passion for the profession and become a confident, future-proof, game-changing Leader Assistant. If you neglect even one pillar, you'll head for burnout, stagnation, and anonymity. You are meant for so much more. Are you ready to be the Leader Assistant the world needs?

A "coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who spent thirteen years as Jackie Kennedy's personal assistant and occasional nanny--and the lessons about life and love she learned from the glamorous [former] first lady"--Amazon.com.

USA TODAY bestselling author Kimberly Belle returns with a deeply addictive thriller exploring the dark side of the digital world when a mommy-blogger’s assistant goes missing. When Alex first began posting unscripted family moments and motivational messages online, she had no intention of becoming an influencer. Overnight it seemed she’d amassed a huge following, and her hobby became a full-time job—one that was impossible to manage without her sharp-as-a-tack personal assistant, AC. But all the good-will of her followers turns toxic when one controversial post goes viral in the worst possible way. Alex reaches out to AC for damage control, but her assistant has gone silent. This young woman Alex trusted with all her secrets, who had access to her personal information and front row seats to the pressure points in her marriage and family life, is now missing and the police are looking to Alex and her husband for answers. As Alex digs into AC’s identity – and a woman is found murdered – she’ll find the greatest threat isn’t online, but in her own living room. Written in alternating perspectives between Alex, her husband, and the mysterious AC, this juicy cat and mouse story will keep you guessing till the very end.

An accessible explanation of the technologies that enable such popular voice-interactive applications as Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. Have you talked to a machine lately? Asked Alexa to play a song, asked Siri to call a friend, asked Google Assistant to make a shopping list? This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers a nontechnical and accessible explanation of the technologies that enable these popular devices. Roberto Pieraccini, drawing on more than thirty years of experience at companies including Bell Labs, IBM, and Google, describes the developments in such fields as artificial intelligence, machine learning, speech recognition, and natural language understanding that allow us to outsource tasks to our ubiquitous virtual assistants. Pieraccini describes the software components that enable spoken communication between humans and computers, and explains why it's so difficult to build machines that understand humans. He explains speech recognition technology; problems in extracting meaning from utterances in order to execute a request; language and speech generation; the dialog manager module; and interactions with social assistants and robots. Finally, he considers the next big challenge in the development of virtual assistants: building in more intelligence--enabling them to do more than communicate in natural language and endowing them with the capacity to know us better, predict our needs more accurately, and perform complex tasks with ease.