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Then we came to the end, by Joshua Ferris - 2007
"It's
worth saying up front that I've earned my living over the past decade by working with organizations going through massive
change -- especially layoffs, acquistions, and in the first four years after 9-11, drastic restructuring in a fight for survival.
Joshua Ferris' novel, "Then We Came to the End" is the most realistic rendering of a workplace under stress that
I've ever read -- much more realistic than any business how-to book, and much much more realistic than any HR self-help guides.
That said, it is also -- for much of its length -- hilarious.
Aside from the obvious chaos that rolling job cuts
create in a workforce (things like complete standstills in productivity and wiped-out morale), Ferris also captures the reality
of the subculture that forms within small companies or small teams within larger organizations."
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Girl on a Bar Stool, by Tim Roux - 2007
Branding isn't
real life, or is it?
When Adam Melton, the ambitious brand manager of Petrovsk Vodka went out on the town
that night, he was hoping to pick up a beautiful girl and a few hints and tips from his target market, the vodka-swilling
ladettes of Reading.
Meeting the sultry Yasemin at the bar in one of his favourite haunts, he got all that he was
hoping for, and ominously more.
Now he has been condemned to save the world.
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Agents and Dealers, by Stephen Brown - 2008
Stephen Brown,
a marketing academic, first started producing fictional marketing books in 2006, when he released "The Marketing Code",
a spoof on Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" weaving marketing lessons and deceptions into the plot.
His
new book, "Agents & Dealers", is another Dan Brown spoof, this time of "Angels and Demons", "filled
with sex shops and stabbings, murder and marketing".
"This prequel is an absolute corker and clearly
Brown had a lot of fun writing it. It melds fact, fiction, autobiography, scholarly research, cultural insight and a dazzlingly
turn of phrase to produce a novel that is so much more than just a parody of Dan Brown's work."
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The Marketing Code, by Max Stephen Brown - 2006
"This is the most entertaining business book you'll ever read. You definitely don't have to work
in marketing to appreciate The Marketing Code - it may even put you off applying for a graduate traineeship in the dark arts.
Written as a perfect parody of Dan Brown's lickety-split, page turning, truth bending mega-work, Stephen Brown's
book is easily read in one sitting. I followed the clues and by the finish I think I'd learned what the secret of marketing
is, but I'm not certain.
Like the other Brown, Stephen mixes fiction and fact but he also tells outright lies
just because he can. He makes his characters tell whoppers too, just to wind us all up, send us down blind alleys and up dark
passages. The whole book has its tongue stuck in its cheek.
If you've studied your Kotler and taken it very seriously
you'll probably scream out loud at some of Stephen Brown's outrageous claims; if you haven't the first clue who Kotler is,
you'll enjoy it for the rip-roaring adventure story.
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Syrup, by Maxx Barry - 2000
Ingenuous new marketing graduate
Scat (he feels that his full name, Michael George Holloway, just won't do for a career in marketing) moves to L.A. hoping
to become rich and famous.
After he gets a million-dollar idea for a new cola product, cheeky and arrogant Scat
approaches a beautiful, ruthless marketing manager named 6 at Coca-Cola. The new product's name is, hilariously, a "dirty"
word, spelled unconventionally and in stylish font on a black can.
But before Scat's cash cow can be milked, his
roommate Sneaky Pete steals the idea, is hired by Coke, and soon holds the purse-strings for Coca-Cola's biggest marketing
undertaking ever, a $140 million movie. The infuriated Scat joins forces with 6 to create their own, better movie, with a
measly $10,000 budget.
With Scat's creative ideas, 6's business acumen and the help of 6's film-major roommate
Tina, and Scat's actress ex-girlfriend Cindy, they set out to beat Sneaky Pete at his own game.
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Company, by Max Barry - 2007
With broad strokes, Barry once
again satirizes corporate America in his third caustic novel (after Jennifer Government).
This time, he takes
aim at the perennial corporate crime of turning people into cogs in a machine.
Recent b-school grad Stephen Jones,
a fresh-faced new hire at a Seattle-based holding company called Zephyr, jumps on the fast track to success when he's immediately
promoted from sales assistant to sales rep in Zephyr's training sales department. "Don't try to understand the company.
Just go with it," a colleague advises when Jones is flummoxed to learn his team sells training packages to other internal
Zephyr departments.
But unlike his co-workers, he won't accept ignorance of his employer's business, and his unusual
display of initiative catapults him into the ranks of senior management, where he discovers the "customer-free"
company's true, sinister raison d'être.
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E, by Matt Beaumont - 2000
Set in a London ad agency desperate
to land a coveted big account, e follows the bureaucratic bungling, cutthroat maneuvers, and outrageous sexual antics of a
group of Miller-Shanks employees as they scheme, lie, lust, and claw their way up (and down) the company ladder.
Written by a former advertising copywriter, this hilarious, dead-on-target novel marks the debut of a hip and exciting new
voice in contemporary fiction.
With the click of a mouse, Matt Beaumont brings the novel of letters into the twenty-first
century, turning his merciless, unerring eye on today's Machiavellian corporate culture-with uproarious results.
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The Sword & The Spirit, by André Bello - 2006
For
busy professionals there is finally a book that delivers a simple, understandable methodology for being a better negotiator.
THE SWORD AND THE SPIRIT, by André Bello, takes readers on an expedition to the kingdom of Cyden and it
is through the travels of the clever Anthos that we learn basic negotiation skills; skills that saved this fabled kingdom,
and skills, that, when learned, can provide anyone with the ability to save their own piece of the world.
Professor
Lawrence Susskind for the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School writes of the book, "Bello manages to condense
large swatches of the negotiation literature into just a few masterfully written pages. My hat is off to André Bello.
Once you have read THE SWORD AND THE SPIRIT you will have been introduced to much of what you need to know to be a better
negotiator."
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The Loan Samurai, by James Johnson
- 2004
The Loan Samurai is a fast-paced business adventure laced with captivating insights on corporate
morals.
The novel unmasks an image cultivated by skillful public relations to reveal disturbing realities behind
a giant corporation.
Unbeknown to almost everyone, IntegriBank actually is permeated with corrupt executives,
faulty accounting, deceit, cover-up, perverse profit motives, and massive undisclosed losses.
"THE SEDUCTION
OF Sarah Stevens began innocently enough, when she stepped into the posh East River penthouse of flamboyant IntegriBank Chairman
Simon Irving for the..."
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The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox - 2004
In
this intriguing, readable business novel, which illustrates state-of-the-art economic theory, Alex Rogo is a UniCo plant manager
whose factory and marriage are failing.
To revitalize the plant, he follows piecemeal advice from an elusive former
college professor who teaches, for example, that reduction in the efficiency of some plant operations may make the entire
operation more productive.
Alex's attempts to find the path to profitability and to engage his employeesi in the
struggle involve the reader; and thankfully the authors' economic models, including a game with match sticks and bowls, are
easy to understand.
Although some characters are as anonymous as the goods manufactured in the factory, others
ring true. In addition, the tender story of Alex and his wife's separation and reconciliation makes a touching contrast to
the rest of the book.
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Wall and Mean, by Tom Bernard - 2007
George Wilhelm gets
his kicks from sex, bond trading and gambling in this promising debut, which mixes those volatile elements with Tarantino-style
violence. In 1993, George, a rookie Wall Street trader, is trying to make his mark in the cutthroat emerging markets funds.
If the financial jargon Bernard uses is arcane, the frenetic pace and high-stakes maneuvers still emerge clearly.
When paper success (low salary but prospects for high bonuses) goes to George's head, he ups his bets on sporting
events to levels that leave him facing financial disaster.
Suddenly, he's in over his head with a pair of sadistic
debt collectors, who get their best ideas from movies like Reservoir Dogs.
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Bank, by David Bledin - 2007
Anyone who works for an investment bank has heard the analyst horror stories.
Why anyone would sacrifice the
majority of their prime years to go work "white-collar slavery" hours, is beyond the ability of most people to rationalize.
"Bank" gives you a bit more perspective into what is going through the minds of these 20-somethings
as they work relentless 110+ hour weeks, sacrifice every relationship, and absorb ridiculous amounts of abuse from their superiors.
Oh -- and then there's the money. The money is good, but its interesting to note how the characters in Bank aren't
as preoccupied with money as they are with simply getting through the week alive.
