Summer is a great time to pick up a book, whether you’re on the beach or in your armchair. Sure, you can burn through the latest bestseller, but why not be entertained and learn something at the same time? These novels range from masterpiece classic to fun thrillers, but they all offer excellent commentary on the business world. Take some time this summer to pick up a few (or all) of these books.
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The Godfather
The Godfather needs no introduction. This classic novel is all about family business, if the family business just happens to be crime. Learn about tradition, honor, and greed in family business from this thrilling crime novel.
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American Psycho
What do Wall Street traders do when they’re not at work? If you’re Patrick Bateman, your nights are filled with torture, murder, obsession, and violence. Read this novel, and you’ll begin to wonder what your colleagues are up to after they’ve left the office.
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Moneyball
As you take in a ball game this summer, it just might be fun to know about the business behind it all. Moneyball follows the true story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane as he uses carefully interpreted statistical data to create a winning team on a budget. It’s an interesting look at the economy of America’s game.
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Crude Policy
Touching on themes familiar to most readers today, Crude Policy is a fictional tale of economic collapse due to a major energy shortage. In this novel, you’ll follow Brian Larson, an ousted oil executive that ends up at the helm of a new presidentially sponsored oil and gas refinery.
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Motor City Shakedown
This thriller examines the role of Teamsters, car companies, and even the Mob in Detroit in 1911. Check out Motor City Shakedown for a story full of mystery, suspense, and revealing looks inside the automobile industry.
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Then We Came to the End
What’s life like in the middle of a corporate downturn? Then We Came to the End shares a fictional account of an advertising firm in the wake of dot-com bubble layoffs. Employees raid ousted co-workers’ offices, hound the breakroom for free food, and try out pranks to break boredom in this novel that explores dysfunctional cubicle life.
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The Great Gatsby
A classic of 20th-century literature, The Great Gatsby is about more than love and the Jazz Age: it’s a criticism of the self-made man, Jay Gatsby. Explore greed, money, and ambition in the pursuit of the American Dream in this beloved novel.
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Reminisces of a Stock Operator
A classic stock market novel, Reminisces of a Stock Operator explores the experiences of an American stock market trader in the 1920s. Full of lessons and observations, this novel is not just entertaining, it’s educational.
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Barbarians at the Gate
One of the most important business books of all time, Barbarians at the Gate shares the story of RJR Nabisco’s fall, one of the largest takeovers in Wall Street history. Check out this book to learn about financial operations at the highest levels.
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Lloyd: What Happened
In this corporate culture novel, complete with color bar graphs and pie charts, we follow the journey of Lloyd, an executive tasked with launching the audacious Moby Deal. Lloyd: What Happened offers a comic look into modern day corporate life.
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The Greatest Salesman in the World
Long beloved as a powerful parable for salesmanship, this classic is a must-read for anyone in business. Be sure to check out The Greatest Salesman in the World to find inspiration to become a good salesperson, find inspiration, and believe in yourself.
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Zephyr Holdings
What exactly does Zephyr Holdings do? No one really knows, but protagonist employee Jones sets out to discover the truth in this novel, uncovering the company’s secrets.
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Post Office
Stop to consider the business of the mail in Post Office. Read along as mail carriers deliver important pieces past mountains and guard dogs while dodging crazy coworkers and sadistic bosses, and one discovers that he’s lost more than 12 years of his life to the Postal Service.
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How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Anyone who is trying to climb the corporate ladder will appreciate this satirical look at how to land the corner office. Now a Broadway musical, this guide offers a beloved story of making it big without doing a whole lot.
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How to Succeed at Business Spying by Trying
Delve into the world of industrial espionage in How to Succeed at Business Spying by Trying, by Shepherd Mead, the author of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. This exciting novel offers a look at how agent Mark Price busts a conspiracy against the industrial heart of America, with plenty of wit and humor to keep things interesting.
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Microserfs
In this thinly veiled examination of life at Microsoft, Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs shares the experience of coders at the technology giant. As they worry whether they’ll be fired or not, these “Microserfs” get a chance to become innovators, rather than cogs in the machine.
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Leverage
In this Tom Spears novel, we learn that there’s more to business than simple persistence and hard work. You’ll follow Mark Carson’s struggle to get ahead at the Global Guidance Corporation as a cheating wife and corporate crime threaten to undo him.
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Kings of Infinite Space
In Kings of Infinite Space, work is hell. Paul Tribly is having a rough go of his career, losing his university teaching job and work as a textbook publisher, falling to a position of a temp writer for the government. But all is not as it seems, and Tribly begins to unravel the mysteries of his workplace.
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Gain
How do large enterprises impact the daily lives of consumers? Gain attempts to explore this question as it combines two different stories of Laura Body, a small-town woman, and an international consumer products conglomerate based in her hometown. The two stories intertwine to reveal how the conglomerate has changed Body’s life forever.
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Falling Sideways
Corporate downsizing is a situation full of drama and suspense, and in Falling Sideways, it’s captured perfectly. Read along to see how business at the high-profile Copenhagen firm The Tank turns sour and creates rippling effects for the families that work there.
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Severance Package
At Jamie DeBroux’s office, layoffs aren’t as simple as packing up your things in a banker’s box. As a former cover for a branch of the intelligence community, DeBroux’s boss expects everyone to surrender themselves to death or be shot in the head. What follows is the story of his harrowing escape attempt.
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Deadline
Let’s be honest: a novel about project management doesn’t sound particularly interesting, but Deadline offers a surprisingly engaging read. You’ll follow the experiences of a project manager as he meets impossible deadlines, while at the same time finding lots of helpful practical information for project managers.
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The Goal
The Goal offers a thrilling tale of a plant with just 90 days to live. Plant manager Alex Rogo fights to keep it open, avoiding hundreds of job losses, while at the same time working to save his marriage. Although this is a fun read, it’s an educational one too, offering a detailed look into the Theory of Constraints that’s been lauded by both Fortune and Businessweek.
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Top Producer
In the fast-paced world of finance, there’s plenty of intrigue among top producers. Murder, scams, and frenemies abound in this novel that explores not just stocks and bonds, but the people behind them.
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The Fund
In today’s world, terrorism is not limited to bombs. There’s a new kind of terrorism to worry about: financial terrorism. In The Fund, you’ll follow U.S. defense intelligence operative Kate Molares as she works to stop a hedge fund mogul that’s attempting to bring the global economy down with destruction of the world’s financial markets.
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