From the author of A Perfectly Normal Childhood comes a sharp, funny, uncomfortably honest collection of essays about the person you were — and the person you still are. Jason Ramshaw ran magic shows out of his basement. Charged admission. Controlled the lighting. He was ten. By the time he was selling draft beer at the Ritz-Carlton, moving cookware to people who didn't cook, and performing nightly at a steakhouse where the real show happened in forty-minute intervals downstairs — the pattern was obvious to everyone except him. Nothing New, Just Better Lighting picks up where A Perfectly Normal Childhood left off. Except now the tricks have titles. The haunted house has a lease. And the kid who always had to run the room is starting to notice that the room never actually changed. These fourteen essays move from childhood performances to boardroom instincts, from a couch where everything finally stopped to a bee colony that cooperated better than most companies — and didn't survive either. Along the way, Ramshaw catalogs a life spent confusing effort for identity, charm for connection, and motion for progress. No lessons. No redemption arc. Just evidence, stacked cleanly, under better lighting. For readers of David Sedaris, Sloane Crosley, and anyone who has ever suspected that growing up is just childhood with a different résumé.