The author of "Peterson's Holiday Helper" presents a brand-new, bitingly witty yet charmingly upbeat collection of refreshing pick-me-ups to make the most of one's own happy hours on even the darkest days.

With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, Marlowe Granados’s stunning debut brilliantly captures a summer of striving in New York City. Isa Epley, all of twenty-one years old, is already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. She arrives in New York with her newly blond best friend looking for adventure. They have little money, but that’s hardly going to stop them. By day, the girls sell clothes on a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave between Brooklyn, the Upper East Side, and the Hamptons among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, Internet entrepreneurs, stuffy intellectuals, and bad-mannered grifters. Resources run ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert social capital into something more lasting than precarious gigs as au pairs, nightclub hostesses, paid audience members, and aspiring foot fetish models. Through it all, Isa’s bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill. Happy Hour is a novel about getting by and having fun in a system that wants you to do neither.

"This book is for anyone who wants to enjoy work more--whether you are an employee or a manager, a new hire or a grizzled veteran, work in a small start-up, a huge corporation or the public sector. This book will give you the theory of happiness at work, simple, effective tools that you can use to create a better work life for yourself and a happier workplace, a massive dose of energy to get you to do something about it right here and now, [and] a specific plan to help you change your job for the better, find a new job where you can shine or to make your employees happy, motivated top-performers."--Page 4 of cover.