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Submitted by tcomeau on
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I'm not inclined to recommend fiction much. I'm recommending [i]Then We Came To The End[/i], by Joshua Ferris, because there is some discussion in the forums about layoffs, sparked in part by the "Immunizations" podcast.

The book is set in a marketing firm, and covers the decline and shrinkage of a midsize company down to nothing. Most of the story is told first person plural. Not the royal we, but the personal we.

The story opens with "Tom's Final Hour," includes a director battling breast cancer, a divorce, lawsuits, loves and hates, and a whole series of layoffs playing out in different ways. A few handle the layoffs well, most handle it very badly. As somebody who has been through the collapse of a company and who has barely avoided layoffs, every story rang true to me.

It's a good read, though not a great one. It's not history, but it's not wrong, either.

tc>

FlatFeeKing's picture

Thanks for the tip!! I will have to check if its available via audio book on audible or somewhere else. do you read often? or do you take 20 minutes every day to read? i want to read more and stay educated more. Its tough to read, so i listen to audiobooks and podcosts while i drive and swim

tcomeau's picture
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[quote="FlatFeeKing"]do you read often? or do you take 20 minutes every day to read?
[/quote]

I read about an hour a night on weeknights, and a few hours on the weekends. I usually have one fiction and one nonfiction book in progress all the time, with two or three of each in the queue. Right now I'm reading Nicholas Carr's [i]The Big Switch[/i], and Lois McMaster Bujold's [i]The Hallowed Hunt[/i].

We read a lot. I'm also reading Edward Bloor's [i]Tangerine[/i] with Teela, who is reading it for school. I try to stay a chapter ahead of her, so we can talk about the story, and how her classmates are responding. Teela and her mom are also reading Ally Carter's [i]I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You[/i] for their mother-daughter reading group.

I'm impressed with Carr's book so far, so I'll probably write about it here when I'm finished.

tc>