Why is so much of the world managed by arseholes? (MBA)

28 July 2015 | Creative

Why is so much of the world managed by arseholes? Were they born that way? Did they sweat to achieve it? Or did we send them to special schools to learn?Fired by an arsehole just as his career is taking off, 30-year-old MBA Ben Stillman's ideas about success have been turned upside down. No such confusion troubles William C Gyro, the American dean of Ben's alma mater: he is about to complete the transformation of Hampton Management College from a second-rate English business school into a world-class madrassa of capitalism.When Ben agrees to spend 10 days helping Gyro, a vortex of events sucks in the world's fattest fat cats, banking-crisis culprits, the British Prime Minister and the only woman who can confront Ben with his own inner arsehole. Will any of them survive? Do any of them deserve to? A contemporary farce with the pace of a thriller, 'MBA' is also a piercing yet hopeful inquiry into success. Felicity Wood, deputy features editor of The Bookseller, describes Douglas Board's first novel as 'a must-read for anyone who enjoyed Franzen's 'Freedom' or Eggers' 'The Circle'.' Read more comments and buy the novel, or download 90 per cent of it free in e-book or pdf formats, here. The 90 per cent pdf version is also downloadable free from this site. Or watch a 20 minute interview of Douglas by Felicity here.

Just a second