What do you think?
Rate this book
Minding the Store: Great Literature About Business from Tolstoy to Now
In a course he taught at Harvard Business School and elsewhere for many years, esteemed psychiatrist Robert Coles asked future money market managers and risk arbitrageurs to pause for a semester and reflect on the ethical dimensions of their chosen profession.
Now, for corporate professionals, armchair entrepreneurs, and other students of commerce, Coles has gathered a generous and stimulating collection of classic literary reflections on the ethical and spiritual predicaments of the business world.
From John Cheever’s descriptions of a businessman who endures a moral crisis after stealing a neighbor’s wallet, and Gwendolyn Parker’s “Uppity Buppie,” in which an African American woman ascends to the upper ranks of corporate America, to Death of a Salesman and Tolstoy’s “Master and Man,”Minding the Store offers a richly human vision of the business world. With selections by Joseph Heller, Flannery O’Connor, Ann Beattie, and John Updike, Coles gives us the essential literary gems that illuminate the human predicaments of commerce and the moral quandaries of the marketplace.
Now, for corporate professionals, armchair entrepreneurs, and other students of commerce, Coles has gathered a generous and stimulating collection of classic literary reflections on the ethical and spiritual predicaments of the business world.
From John Cheever’s descriptions of a businessman who endures a moral crisis after stealing a neighbor’s wallet, and Gwendolyn Parker’s “Uppity Buppie,” in which an African American woman ascends to the upper ranks of corporate America, to Death of a Salesman and Tolstoy’s “Master and Man,”Minding the Store offers a richly human vision of the business world. With selections by Joseph Heller, Flannery O’Connor, Ann Beattie, and John Updike, Coles gives us the essential literary gems that illuminate the human predicaments of commerce and the moral quandaries of the marketplace.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
303 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2008
70 people want to read
About the author
Robert Coles
245 books77 followersChild psychiatrist, author, Harvard professor.
Robert Coles is a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School, a research psychiatrist for the Harvard University Health Services, and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard College.
Robert Coles is a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at the Harvard Medical School, a research psychiatrist for the Harvard University Health Services, and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard College.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 22, 2020
I was misled by the subtitle to this book when I bought it. I expected essays about business from well-known writers over the last century or so, but instead found short stories and excerpts from novels to make up most of its content, and with many wondered how they related to the general them of the book. If not for the great short stories by Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Joseph Conrad, and Leo Tolstoy included, I would have been disappointed.
June 20, 2010
I wrote this review right at the end of my time at 800-CEO-READ for the Jack Covert Selects:
Many of the best-selling business books of the last thirty years are not based on exemplar companies, Fortune 500 CEOs or academic breakthroughs. Instead, they are completely made up; stories fabricated to make a grand point about how business should be practiced. Business fiction clearly attracts large audiences given the success of books like The One Minute Manager and Who Moved My Cheese? The biggest problem with this subgenre is formulaic writing that leaves the reader wondering if they haven't already read this one before (or in some cases, many times before).
However, fiction can still be a wonderful and intriguing tool for teaching business. Joseph Badaracco proved this in his book, Questions of Character, which we reviewed for Jack Covert Selects in 2006 and chose as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Based on a course Badaracco taught at Harvard Business School, Questions of Character uses literature to explore the difficult questions leaders often face.
Before Badaracco, Pulitizer Prize-winning author Robert Coles was using fiction to teach ethics at Harvard. The dean of the business school caught wind of his work and asked Coles to develop a class for his students. That successful seminar is now also available in book form: Minding the Store, edited with Albert LaFarge, a collection of fiction stories and excerpts that illuminate the ethical and philosophical aspects of business.
The editors divided Minding the Store into five parts. The first section is on "the hard sell," followed by life in the office and how business affects life at home. The final two parts cover failure and death. Not the typical agenda items for the weekly brown bag lunch, but then Willy Loman (from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman) is not your typical field representative. From Flannery O'Connor to John Cheever to Vladimir Nabokov, this book features some of the best in literature, all of whom teach us a surprising amount about business through their insights into human nature.
And that is one of the results of reading good fiction; we become invested in the characters and wonder what we would do faced the same dilemmas. Minding the Store is a stimulating self-study course during which you will be challenged to construct the questions, as well as provide the answers. Some questions are clear and familiar, while others require deeper contemplation and personal resolution. Consider this your invitation to do some needed soul-searching, with these incredible stories as the guide.
Many of the best-selling business books of the last thirty years are not based on exemplar companies, Fortune 500 CEOs or academic breakthroughs. Instead, they are completely made up; stories fabricated to make a grand point about how business should be practiced. Business fiction clearly attracts large audiences given the success of books like The One Minute Manager and Who Moved My Cheese? The biggest problem with this subgenre is formulaic writing that leaves the reader wondering if they haven't already read this one before (or in some cases, many times before).
However, fiction can still be a wonderful and intriguing tool for teaching business. Joseph Badaracco proved this in his book, Questions of Character, which we reviewed for Jack Covert Selects in 2006 and chose as one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. Based on a course Badaracco taught at Harvard Business School, Questions of Character uses literature to explore the difficult questions leaders often face.
Before Badaracco, Pulitizer Prize-winning author Robert Coles was using fiction to teach ethics at Harvard. The dean of the business school caught wind of his work and asked Coles to develop a class for his students. That successful seminar is now also available in book form: Minding the Store, edited with Albert LaFarge, a collection of fiction stories and excerpts that illuminate the ethical and philosophical aspects of business.
The editors divided Minding the Store into five parts. The first section is on "the hard sell," followed by life in the office and how business affects life at home. The final two parts cover failure and death. Not the typical agenda items for the weekly brown bag lunch, but then Willy Loman (from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman) is not your typical field representative. From Flannery O'Connor to John Cheever to Vladimir Nabokov, this book features some of the best in literature, all of whom teach us a surprising amount about business through their insights into human nature.
And that is one of the results of reading good fiction; we become invested in the characters and wonder what we would do faced the same dilemmas. Minding the Store is a stimulating self-study course during which you will be challenged to construct the questions, as well as provide the answers. Some questions are clear and familiar, while others require deeper contemplation and personal resolution. Consider this your invitation to do some needed soul-searching, with these incredible stories as the guide.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews