What should you read to get familiar with a new job? Employee handbooks or classic management titles can be an obvious starting point. But for many professions, a more informal reading list can offer more information than official resources.
These unconventional classics, chosen by people working in key sectors, can act as spiritual guides, revealing the subtlest nuances of corporate culture or everyday art. Most importantly, they are often a pleasure to read, whether you are employed in the field or not.
Accountants: ‘Foundation Series’ by Isaac Asimov
Vivek Kotecha, a forensic accountant who began his career at Deloitte and now runs Trinava Accounting, says Asimov’s sci-fi epic, which revolves around a maverick who combines mathematics and sociology to predict the future, is a useful cautionary tale for his colleagues. “The reliance on grand historical patterns and laws of human behavior in novels reflects the (sometimes misplaced) confidence that accountants… . . “We have both historical financial data and accounting standards,” he says. “The lesson I take from this is the constant need for humility.”
Doctors: ‘A Lucky Man’ by John Berger
Matthew Baker, a South London-based doctor, was first recommended John Berger’s treatment. a lucky man by a colleague from the geriatric ward. The book, with photography by Jean Mohr, documents the life of a rural doctor and contemplates what it means to make sacrifices for work and feel fulfilled by it. “It offers a very human and tender perspective on the relationship between doctor and patient,” he says. “[There’s] A highlight about the doctor’s role is separating the illness from the patient, naming it, which psychologically is a very important step for recovery.”
Civil Engineers: ‘Flourish: Designing Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency’ by Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn
Jessica Rowe, a Cornwall-based civil engineer, says the regenerative design principles set out in Flourish rekindled his love for the profession. The book examines the next phase of sustainable construction and traces how engineering can bring communities together, redress injustices, and improve health outcomes. “Flourish helped me see the built environment industry for what it was: an existing system that needed a total transformation,” says Rowe, “it helped me envision a good future for the industry.”
Lawyers: ‘Bleak House’ by Charles Dickens
“Lawyers love to make fun of themselves through the lens of Bleak House,” says Nick Bano, housing attorney and author of Against the owners: how to solve the real estate crisis. “It shows a mirror of the country melodrama of the law. His legal characters, despite their villainy, are dignified and worldly. They remain strangely aspirational.” The book, which follows a thorny legal case involving conflicting wills and warring heirs, remains a touchpoint for navigating the UK legal system, Bano says. “It’s a poignant reminder that our job is to get clients out of legal quagmires, rather than tempting them deeper.”
Restaurateurs: ‘The Art of Eating’ by MFK Fisher
Hackney’s Towpath Cafe Co-Owner and Head Bartender Lori de Mori Recommends MFK Fisher’s The art of eating as a way of understanding what it means to satisfy hunger with pleasure and style. “Fisher championed writing about food, rather than ‘bigger’ themes like power and love, because to her, our universal hunger meant they were the same.” This anthology, first published in 1951, covers topics ranging from oysters to cooking in times of rationing.
Joiners: ‘The architecture of happiness’ by Alain de Botton
As director of the Richard Cullinan woodworking studio, Katie Cullinan spends a lot of time on construction sites. “I find them full of hope and potential, ready to be transformed,” he says. For reading at work, she recommends de Botton’s 2006 look at beauty and the built environment, which examines how the buildings we live in shape our lives. “This book looks at the importance of our environment and the way it impacts our well-being. I find this concept incredibly interesting and not at all surprising.”
Programmers: ‘Seeing as a State: 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 has wide-ranging implications for the way governments track and surveil their citizens. Christa Hartsock, software engineer, UX researcher and co-founder of Logic magazine, says Scott’s book has become one of the most read and referenced among those working in the world of public interest and civic technology.
Bankers: ‘Investment banking explained: an insider’s guide to the industry’ by Michel Fleuriet
Written by a former president of HSBC France, the book has become popular reading among those working in finance, says Dorian Maillard, director of DAI Magister, an M&A investment bank specializing in technology and climate. The book analyzes the history of banking until the financial crisis and delves into commercial, equity and fixed income strategies.
Biotech Entrepreneurs: ‘The Billion Dollar Molecule’ by Barry Werth
Published in 1994, The trillion dollar molecule tells the story of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery startup that became a formidable rival to Big Pharma despite tremendous obstacles. Stephanie Wisner, co-founder of biotech company Centivax, says it makes a compelling argument for the risk-taking inherent in developing new drugs. “All the co-founders have had difficult times, ups and downs. . . “Even a company as successful as Vertex went through difficult periods on its path to helping patients.”
Architects: ‘Delirious New York’ by Rem Koolhaas
Manhattan, writes Rem Koolhaas, is the “Rosetta stone of the 20th century.” In New York delirious, In a book divided into blocks that reflect the city’s districts, he presents a manifesto for the city as a collective experiment. Ellis Woodman, director of The Architecture Foundation, describes it as “a knockout: a very funny and influential story of the development of New York.”
Perfumers: ‘À rebours (Against nature)’ by Joris Karl Huysmans
In this cult book (presented as the “poisonous French novel” in Oscar Wilde’s novel TO Image of Dorian Gray) a fictitious “perfume organ” mixes notes to create fragrance. The term is now used to describe a scent maker’s desk. Perfumer Timothy Han says that this hugely influential work “set the tone for the period of decline in art and fashion.” “Marc Almond wrote an album about it, Serge Gainsbourg modeled his flat after it. Marianne Faithful once wrote: “You would ask your date, ‘Have you read ‘A Rebours?'” and if I said yes, you would fuck.’
Teachers: ”I will not learn from you’ and other reflections on creative maladjustment’ by Herbert Kohl
This collection of essays, written by one of the leading proponents of the “open classroom” model, is highly regarded by American teachers, says Lois Weiner, professor of education at New Jersey City University. Part autobiography and part problem-solving guide, it draws on Kohl’s experiences in the classroom as well as the philosophy of the civil rights movement. “I think it’s more relevant and necessary today than ever, especially the essay about the need for teachers to be ‘hope-mongers,’ to teach hope,” Weiner says.
Art Dealers: ‘Duveen: The Story of the Most Spectacular Art Dealer of All Time’ by Samuel N Behrman
This book is a study of the psychoanalysis of art selling through the legendary dealer Joseph Duveen, a man who captivated America’s wealthy industrialists with his unusual style. “What most people I know aspire to within their practice is also a certain sprezzatura [graceful effortlessness] behind which there is much thought, consideration and erudition.” says independent art dealer Devon McCormack. The book is on the nightstands of most art dealers, he says. “It is instructive in the sense that it provides a framework for understanding human desires.”
The enduring appeal of the office novel
Love and cunning explain the appeal of recent novels that address work and the workplace, according to Jo Thompson, editorial director of Borough Press and Hemlock Press.
She says readers crave stories of “people sighing during the department meeting” or getting lost in the kind of “darkest point” of professional success described by Rebecca Kuang in yellow face.
Even the dullest job can be exciting if the story is told well, says Adelle Waldman, whose novel help Wantedrevolves around retail workers in a fictional hypermarket. Let’s think, for example, of Herman Melville’s book. Bartleby, the clerk: “literally a story about an employee who refuses to perform mundane tasks with the refrain ‘I’d rather not,'” says Waldman, which is “extremely funny and compelling.”
Madeleine Gray, author of green dotabout a newspaper content moderator, says readers are drawn to the “human commons” in work fiction. It’s rewarding to see others experience “a camaraderie that comes from traumatic colleagues’ bonds,” he says. “Agreeing to spend nine hours a day at a desk working to make a profit for someone other than yourself is crazy. But it is something that most of us agree to do, because the alternative is to starve.”
The peculiarities of the international workplace can be difficult, says Sean Lin Halbert, translator of the Korean book Sohn Won-pyung Counterattacks at thirty. Honorifics are particularly tricky. When speaking “up” in hierarchies “you need a completely different vocabulary and grammar,” which presents a challenge for translators who want to convey conservative corporate environments.
Workplace relationships have “unusual layers,” says Calvin Kasulke, whose novel Several people are writing It takes place primarily in the Slack messaging app. “You may not get along particularly well interpersonally with someone, but you make a great work couple, you may be great friends at work and never interact outside of the office, or you may be intimately familiar with someone in the workplace for years. and learn almost nothing. about his personal life.” That mystery creates complexity. “How does the confusion between the workplace self and our everyday self affect the way we behave?”
The co-workers together may not be all that different from the Highbury residents in Jane Austen’s film. emma. “The modern workplace has much in common with the rich social settings of the 19th-century novel,” adds Waldman. “There is a clearly defined social world, characterized by hierarchy and the desire of some on the lower rungs to rise and of those on the upper rungs to retain their places, if not to rise.”