Who Moved My Blackberry?

by Lucy Kellaway

Overview

The television show The Office meets Bridget Jones in a novel set in an office so dysfunctional, it's bound to strike a chord with any nine-to-fiver.

A compulsively readable, hilarious novel told through the e-mail messages of Martin Lukes. Martin Lukes is a man who is good at taking credit where it isn't due; a man who works hard at "personal growth" but consistently lets down everyone around him; a man who communicates with his sons by e-mail and fails to notice how smart his wife, Jenny, really is; a man -- in short -- who loves jargon but totally lacks understanding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401384234
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	04/04/2006
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lucy Kellaway is the management columnist at the Financial Times. She also writes a weekly management column for the Irish Times. In addition she has worked as energy correspondent, Brussels correspondent, a Lex column writer for the Financial Times, and interviewer of business people and celebrities, all with the FT. She has become well known for her pointed commentaries on the limitations of modern corporate culture. At the British Press Awards 2006 she was named Columnist of the Year.

Editorial Reviews

Who Moved My BlackBerry? is not art. Those in search of a book that gets to the human cost and comedy of modern technology as White Noise or The Corrections did will not find it in the small-screen antics of Martin Lukes. Kellaway's book is a snapshot, a lot of clever messages that ultimately point at their own absurdity. Then again, perhaps that's the idea. Her frenetic yet motionless characters reflect the irony of BlackBerryed life: It only looks as if you're busy.
— The New York Times

Ana Marie Cox

British journalist Kellaway moves into fiction with a novel featuring the marketing executive she created for her Financial Times column. Martin Lukes fancies himself an out-of-the-box thinker at his global marketing firm and quite the family man at home. He loves his email, which he uses to boss around his staff, to brag about jobs he has no chance of getting, to flirt with his silly new secretary, to scold his wife for not understanding the scope of his commitments, to connect with the two sons he never sees and, most importantly, to communicate with Pandora. She's his guru at CoachworX!, where Martin has signed up for the Executive Bronze Life Coaching Program (his company's finance director wouldn't approve the platinum one). Her coaching will help him be "better than your very best," Pandora promises. Despite his personal commitment to become more introspective, and his boasts of being a team player, Martin's emails-which constitute the novel's entire text-reveal a man woefully inept at human relations. By the time he launches a steamy affair with "Kinky Pinky," his young secretary, Martin has cluelessly angered most of his family and coworkers with his empty promises. The one area in which he seems to excel is in making up words for marketing purposes, such as "creovation" (a hybrid of creative and innovation). Martin's self-important emails are delightfully droll, and the tale becomes all the more entertaining when his angry teenaged son gets hold of Martin's BlackBerry and proceeds to wreak havoc on his neglectful father's life. Enjoyable satire of corporate life's stupidities and empty language, as well as those who buy into them.

Kirkus Reviews

Using email messages, this epistolary novel recounts the compulsions of Martin Lukes, the archetype of a self-absorbed, successful professional. Simon Vance has Martin’s personality down cold in a spirited performance that takes Martin as seriously as he takes himself. Vance draws out Martin’s superficially earnest tone when giving advice to subordinates, his dripping ambition in professional dealings, and his total ineptitude in personal interactions. Anna Fields provides delightful comic relief with her presentation of Martin’s life coach, whose exercises for Martin and cheerleading aphorisms are as superficial as he is. Vance and Fields portray the fast pace of a corporate world dominated by Blackberries, with its shallow interactions and demands for instant gratification. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

APR/MAY 07 - AudioFile