August 2024

A tender, humorous, and page-turning debut about a Vietnamese Canadian family in Toronto who will do whatever it takes to protect their no-frills nail salon after a new high end salon opens up—even if it tears the family apart. Perfect for readers of Olga Dies Dreaming and The Fortunes of Jaded Women. Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked. Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they’ve built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon? Sunshine Nails is a light-hearted, urgent fable of gentrification with a cast of memorable and complex characters who showcase the diversity of immigrant experiences and community resilience.

In Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and knack for social observation to the world of work. At a big\-box store in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every morning at 3:55\. Under the eye of a self\-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before customers arrive. When a golden opportunity for a promotion presents itself, the diverse members of Movement―among them a comedy\-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging to her “cool kid” status from high school, a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together and set a just\-so\-crazy\-it\-might\-work plot into motion. A darkly comic workplace caper that explores the aches and uses of solidarity, Help Wanted is a deeply human portrait of people trying, against increasingly long odds, to make a living.

A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read for March 2024 \ A Bustle Best New Book of Spring 2024* Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist Jane Marie expands on her popular podcast The Dream to expose the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class. We’ve all heard of Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and LuLaRoe, but few know the nefarious way they and countless other multilevel marketing (MLM) companies prey on desperate Americans struggling to make ends meet. When factories close, stalwart industries shutter, and blue-collar opportunities evaporate, MLMs are there, ready to pounce on the crumbling American Dream. MLMs thrive in rural areas and on military bases, targeting women with promises of being their own boss and millions of dollars in easy income—even at the risk of their entire life savings. But the vast majority—99.7%—of those who join an MLM make no money or lose money, and wind up stuck with inventory they can’t sell to recoup their losses. Featuring in-depth reporting and intimate research, Selling the Dream reveals how these companies—often owned by political and corporate elites, such as the Devos and the Van Andels families—have made a windfall in profit off of the desperation of the American working class.