Margo's Got Money Troubles is a novel that offers a bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman's attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world. This contemporary tale, penned by the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen, Rufi Thorpe, provides an insightful and comedic look into the challenges faced when balancing the demands of modern life with financial constraints.

Ah yes, hello! You there! Standing in the bookstore looking at the book! Yes, I would like to have a word with you, if I might.

Hello.

OK, maybe I need a few more words, such as, perhaps, thank you for picking up the book. You are half-way to saying, "Yes, I think I would like to read this book," which is a very nice thing for you to say.

You see, as the author of this book, the more people who pick it up and glance at this hopefully humorous blurb (my publisher told me earlier today that I needed to write a blurb, and advised it would be good to make it funny. I am doing my best, Tc.) the more people will hopefully decide to purchase it, and if that happens, you will be happy because you will have possession of a hilarious bit of writing (my book). I will be happy because writers write so readers can read. And Tc will be happy because the whole point of agreeing to publish The World According to Crash - Miscellaneous Stuff & Stuff is, well, to sell books.

So let's make the world a happier place all around and purchase, read, and hopefully write a rockin' review of The World According to Crash - Miscellaneous Stuff & Stuff.

Thank you for your time.

Wanted: One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employers Hermès bag. Those who take it personally need not apply.

Who wouldn't want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn't work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day. When the Xs' marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude.

Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, retired, estranged from his only daughter, the former life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Glass encounters his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, who is working in a local bookstore—a far cry from the brilliant academic career Tom had begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the colorful and charismatic Harry Brightman—a.k.a. Harry Dunkel—once the owner of a Chicago art gallery, whom fate has also brought to the "ancient kingdom of Brooklyn, New York." Through Tom and Harry, Nathan's world gradually broadens to include a new circle of acquaintances. He soon finds himself drawn into a scam involving a forged page of The Scarlet Letter, and begins to undertake his own literary venture, The Book of Human Folly, an account of "every blunder, every pratfall, every embarrassment, every idiocy, every foible, and every inane act I have committed during my long and checkered career as a man." The Brooklyn Follies is Paul Auster's warmest, most exuberant novel, a moving, unforgettable hymn to the glories and mysteries of ordinary human life.

David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all sounds so normal, doesn't it? In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives -- a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.