'A hilarious account of life with the children of the super rich...well written...and very funny indeed' - BOOK OF THE WEEK Daily Mail 'A hilarious, behind-the-scenes memoir of the mad world of the very rich' Daily Telegraph 'Very funny...the book bursts with butlers, helicopters and Damien Hirsts' The Times 'There are so many laughs in this book, you almost forget how upsetting capitalism is' Simon Amstell A naked Russian oligarch is spanking me in his basement. His weapon is a birch branch, the setting his luxurious home sauna. Above us is 30,000 square feet of one of Moscow's most obscene private homes, an original Damien Hirst above the fireplace, a vacuum cleaning system built into the skirting boards. Invisible speakers serenade us with a desolate pan pipe cover of 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'. A light display rotates kaleidoscopically, illuminating the oligarch's genitals in a variety of unexpected hues. Everyone is silent. Then the oligarch's son Nikita looks at me with a mysterious smile. 'Now my mother will bring us honey.' Matt Knott spent over a decade traveling the globe as a private tutor. He has taught Shakespeare in Moscow, times tables in Tuscany, and is still trying to figure out how to explain long division. With brilliant honesty and wit, he takes us inside a world most of us only glimpse speeding past in a luxury SUV. Unfolding across four continents and featuring a colourful cast of butlers, billionaires and yummy mummies, this is a hilarious and touching chronicle of an unforgettable time.

Miss Harriet Peabody dreams of the day she can open up a shop selling refashioned gowns to independent working women like herself. Unfortunately, when an errand for her millinery shop job goes sadly awry due to a difficult customer, she finds herself out of an income. Mr. Oliver Addleshaw is on the verge of his biggest business deal yet when he learns his potential partner prefers to deal with men who are settled down and wed. When Oliver witnesses his ex not-quite-fiance cause the hapless Harriet to lose her job, he tries to make it up to her by enlisting her help in making a good impression on his business partner. Harriet quickly finds her love of fashion can't make her fashionable. She'll never truly fit into Oliver's world, but just as she's ready to call off the fake relationship, fancy dinners, and elegant balls, a threat from her past forces both Oliver and Harriet to discover that love can come in the most surprising packages.

"Turano continues to be one of the funniest voices in the inspirational genre, and her spunky heroines will appeal to readers across the romance spectrum."--Booklist After growing up as an orphan, Millie Longfellow is determined to become the best nanny the East Coast has ever seen. Unfortunately, her playfulness and enthusiasm aren't always well-received and she finds herself dismissed from yet another position. Everett Mulberry has quite unexpectedly become guardian to three children that scare off every nanny he hires. About to depart for Newport, Rhode Island, for the summer, he's desperate for competent childcare. At wit's end with both Millie and Everett, the employment agency gives them one last chance--with each other. As Millie falls in love with her mischievous charges, Everett focuses on achieving the coveted societal status of the upper echelons. But as he investigates the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the children's parents, will it take the loss of those he loves to learn whose company he truly wants for the rest of his life?

"One of the funniest voices in the inspirational genre."--Booklist Lucetta Plum is an actress on the rise in New York City, but is forced to abandon her starring role when a fan's interest turns threatening. Lucetta's widowed friend, Abigail Hart, is delighted at the opportunity to meddle in Lucetta's life and promptly whisks her away to her grandson's estate to hide out. Bram Haverstein may appear to simply be a somewhat eccentric gentleman of means, but a mysterious career and a secret fascination with a certain actress mean there's much more to him than society knows. Lucetta, who has no interest in Abigail's matchmaking machinations, has the best intentions of remaining cordial but coolly distant to Bram. But when she can't ignore the strange and mysterious things going on in his house, it'll take more than good intentions to keep her from trying to discover who Bram is behind the part he plays.

Lives of Their Own depicts the strikingly different lives of black, Italian, and Polish immigrants in Pittsburgh. Within a comparative framework, the book focuses on the migration process itself, job procurement, and occupational mobility, family structure, home-ownership, and neighborhood institutions. By blending oral histories with quantitative data, the authors have created a convincing multilayered portrait of working-class life in one of our great industrial cities.

Since the Civil War, African Americans have made great efforts to empower themselves. Focusing on Norfolk, Virginia, Earl Lewis shows how blacks have had to balance competing inclinations for conscious inaction and purposeful agitation as they sought to promote their own interests at home and in the workplace. In Their Own Interests presents a cross-section of southern urban blacks—the power-brokers and lesser-knowns, Garvey followers and communist enthusiasts—who came to live in Norfolk between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis seeks to recreate the texture of African-American life by examining the lives of the people after they moved to the city—the jobs and assistance they secured, the houses, families, and institutions they built, the battles they waged, and the culture they shared. In Their Own Interests moves African-American urban and social history beyond the current intellectual crossroads. Drawing on a variety of sources, Lewis tells the interconnected story of race, class, and power in twentieth-century Norfolk. His study has far-reaching implications and should be of wide interest.

This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.