Spoiled Brats (including the story that inspired the major motion picture An Ame [Paperback]

Twenty years ago, Barney the Dinosaur told the nation's children they were special. We're still paying the price.

From one of the funniest writers in America * comes a collection of stories culled from the front lines of the millennial culture wars. Rife with failing rock bands, student loans, and participation trophies,Spoiled Bratsis about a generation of narcissists-and the well-meaning boomers who made them that way.

A hardworking immigrant is preserved for a century in pickle brine. A helicopter mom strives to educate her demon son. And a family of hamsters struggles to survive in a private-school homeroom.

Surreal, shrewd, and surprisingly warm, these stories are as resonant as they are hilarious.

*Jimmy So,Daily Beast

Simon Richspent four years as a staff writer for Saturday Night Live, where he earned four Emmy nominations. He is the author ofThe Last Girlfriend on Earth, What in God's Name, Ant Farm, Free-Range Chickens,andElliot Allagash.His work appears frequently inThe New Yorker. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.ASlateBest Book of 2014

I can't recommend any Simon Rich book - especially this one - highly enough. From the hyper-competitive rituals of Scrabble players to the laments of a grieving, widowed hamster in an elementary school classroom, each story inSpoiled Bratsopens with a brilliant comedic perspective that only gets funnier, more fascinating, more surprising, and more insightful from there. First-rate comedy with a heartbeat, this is one of my favorite books from one of my favorite authors. B.J. Novak, author ofOne More Thing: Stories and Other Storiesand star of The Office Simon Rich is a comedic shape shifter, adopting the plights of hamsters and hipsters alike, andSpoiled Bratsis vividly hilarious in the way Woody Allen and Donald Barthelme are vividly hilarious. Simon Rich is also much taller inl"