What should you read to get used to your new job? Employee manuals and classic management titles can be obvious starting points. However, for many professions, more informal reading lists can provide better insight than formal resources.
Selected by people working in key fields, these quirky classics serve as a spiritual guidebook, revealing the nuances of corporate culture and the artistry of the everyday. The point is that they are often fun to read, whether you work in the field or not.
Accountant: “Foundation Series” by Isaac Asimov
Forensic accountant Vivek Koteka, who started his career at Deloitte and now runs Trinava Accounting, said Asimov’s sci-fi epic, which revolves around a maverick who combines mathematics and sociology to predict the future, will benefit his colleagues. He says it will be a warning. “The faith in large-scale patterns and laws of human behavior in the novel reflects the (sometimes misplaced) confidence that accountants have…in both historical financial data and accounting standards. ” he says. “The lesson I learned from that is that you always need humility.”
Doctors: The Lucky Ones by John Berger
Matthew Baker, a young doctor based in south London, was first recommended John Berger’s The Lucky One by a colleague in his geriatric ward. This book, with photographs by Jean Mohr, chronicles the life of a rural doctor who makes sacrifices for his work and considers what it means to find fulfillment in it. “This work offers a very human and tender perspective on the doctor-patient relationship,” he says. “The salient thing about the doctor’s role is to separate the disease from the patient by naming it, which is a very important psychological step in recovery.”
Civil Engineer: “Thrive: Designing a Paradigm for Earth Emergencies” by Sarah Ichioka & Michael Poulin
Cornwall-based civil engineer Jessica Rowe says the regenerative design principles set out in Flourish have reignited her love for the profession. This book considers the next stage of sustainable building and tracks how engineering can bring communities together, repair inequities, and improve health outcomes. “Flourish helped me understand the built environment industry for what it is: an existing system that needed a complete transformation. It helped me envision a positive future for the industry,” says Lowe. says Mr.
Lawyer: Charles Dickens’ “The Bleak House”
“Lawyers love to poke fun at themselves through the lens of blighted homes,” says Nick Bano, a housing lawyer and author of Against Landlords: How to Solve the Housing Crisis. says. “It mirrors Camp’s legal melodrama. Its legal characters, despite their villains, are dignified and worldly; they remain strangely ambitious.” , which follows messy litigation over conflicting wills and disputed heirs, remains a touchpoint for navigating the British legal system, Bano said. “It is a powerful reminder that our job is not to drag our clients into legal quagmire, but to guide them out of it.”
Restaurateur: “The Art of Eating” by MFK Fisher
Lori De Mori, co-owner and head waiter at Hackney’s Towpath Cafe, turned to MFK Fisher’s The Art of Eating as a way to understand what it means to satisfy hunger with fun and style. is recommended. “Fisher famously defended writing about food, rather than ‘more important’ themes such as power or love, because for her, our universal hunger is the same thing. First published in 1951, this anthology covers topics ranging from oysters to rationing-era cuisine.
Participants: “Architecture of Happiness” by Alain de Botton
As director of Richard Cullinan Joinery Studio, Katie Cullinan spends a lot of time on building sites. “I think they are full of hope and potential and ready for transformation,” she says. For workplace reading, she recommends de Botton’s 2006 book on aesthetics and the built environment, which examines how the buildings we live in shape our lives. Masu. “This book explains the importance of our environment and how it affects our well-being. I find this concept very interesting, but it’s also completely surprising. Not.”
Programmer: “Seeing Like a Nation: How Certain Plans to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed” by James C. Scott
James C. Scott’s research on authoritarianism and state planning focuses primarily on agricultural interventions, but it has far-reaching implications for how governments track and monitor their citizens. Krista Hartsock, software engineer, UX researcher, and co-founder of Logic magazine, calls Scott’s book one of the most read and referenced books among those working in the public interest and civic technology worlds. It says that it has become.
Banker: “Investment Banking Explained: An Industry Insider’s Guide” by Michel Fleurier
The book, written by the former chairman of HSBC France, has become a popular book among financial professionals, said Dorian Maillard, principal at DAI Magister, an M&A investment bank specializing in technology and climate change. . This book examines the history of banks leading up to the financial crisis and delves into trading, stock, and fixed income strategies.
Biotech Entrepreneur: “The Billion-Dollar Molecule” by Barry Worth
Published in 1994, The Billion Dollar Molecule tells the story of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery startup that, despite significant obstacles, became a formidable challenger to Big Pharma. Stephanie Wisner, co-founder of biotech company Sentivax, says this is a convincing argument that developing new drugs is risky. “Each of our co-founders has been through tough times and ups and downs. Even successful companies like Vertex have gone through tough times before helping patients.”
Architect: Rem Koolhaas’s “Delirious New York”
Rem Koolhaas wrote that Manhattan is “the Rosetta Stone of the 20th century.” In Delirious New York, a book divided into blocks that reflect the city’s districts, he presents the city’s manifesto as a collective experiment. Ellis Woodman, director of the Architectural Foundation, describes it as a “striking piece of work, a very interesting and influential history of New York’s development.”
Perfumer: “À rebours (Against Nature)” Joris Karl Huysmans
In this cult book (described as a “toxic French novel” in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray), a fictional “perfume organ” blends notes to create scents. The term is now used to describe the desk of a scent maker. Perfumer Timothy Hung has said that this highly influential work “set the tone for an era of decadence in art and fashion.” “Marc Almond wrote an album about it, Serge Gainsbourg modeled his apartment after it.” Marianne Faithful once wrote, “Read ‘A Rebours’ to a date. Do you have a date?’ If he says yes, you’ll have sex.”
Teacher: “I Won’t Learn from You” and other thoughts on creative maladjustment by Herbert Cole.
This collection of essays by leading proponents of the “open classroom” model is beloved by American school teachers, said Lois Weiner, a professor of education at New Jersey City University. Part autobiography, part troubleshooting guide, it is based on Cole’s experiences in the classroom and philosophy of the civil rights movement. “In particular, I think the essay about the need for teachers to become ‘hope sellers’ in order to teach hope is more relevant and needed today than ever before,” Weiner says. .
Art Dealer: “Davin: The Story of the Most Brilliant Art Dealer of All Time” by Samuel N. Behrman
This book is a psychoanalytic study of art selling through Joseph Duveen, a legendary dealer whose rare style captivated wealthy American businessmen. “Most people I know also aspire to a certain sprezzatura (graceful effortlessness) in their practice, and there is quite a lot of thought behind it. , thoughtfulness, and scholarship,” says independent art dealer Devon McCormack. The book is on most art dealers’ nightstands, she says. “It is useful in that it provides a framework for understanding human desire.”
The unchanging charm of office novels
Joe Thompson, editorial director of Borough Press and Hemlock Press, says love and wickedness explain the appeal of recent novels about work and the workplace.
She said readers want to get lost in stories of “people transfixed across department meetings” and the kind of “dark underside” of career success portrayed by Rebecca Quan in Yellowface. It is said that there is.
Adele Waldman says even the dullest work can be compelling if the story is told well. The novel, Help Wanted, revolves around retail workers at a fictional superstore. For example, consider Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener. “It’s literally a story about an office worker who refuses to do a mundane job with the refrain, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ It’s very funny and compelling,” says Waldman.
Madeleine Gray, author of Green Dot, a book about newspaper content moderators, says readers are drawn to the “human commonalities” of work-based fiction. She says it’s gratifying to see others experience “the camaraderie that emerges from coworker trauma bonds.” “It is insane to agree to work nine hours a day at a desk to make a profit for someone other than ourselves. But the alternative is starvation, so most of us has agreed to do so.”
The peculiarities of an international workplace can be difficult, says Sean Lin Hulbert, translator of “The 30-Year-Old Strikes Back,” by Korean writer Song Won-pyung. Honorific language is especially difficult. Speaking “higher up” in the hierarchy “requires a completely different vocabulary and grammar,” which poses a challenge for translators who want to convey a conservative corporate environment.
Workplace relationships are “layered in an unusual way,” says Calvin Kasulke. His novel “Some People Are Typing” takes place primarily on the messaging app Slack. “Some people may not get along particularly well interpersonally, but they may be great co-workers, or they may be very close at work and never interact outside of the office, or they may have been in the workplace for years. There may be people you’re close with and you don’t learn anything about their personal lives. ”That mystery creates complexity. “How does the ambiguity between our workplace selves and our everyday selves affect our behavior?”
The co-workers you hang out with may not be all that different from the Highbury residents in Jane Austen’s Emma. “The modern workplace has much in common with the rich social environments of 19th-century novels,” adds Waldman. “The social world has a clear hierarchy characterized by a hierarchical structure, the desire of those at the bottom to move up, and the desire of those at the top to maintain their position even if they are not promoted. There is a society defined by
