Book Funny

Some good news: Brian Hennigan’s Patrick Robertson: A Tale of Adventure, a novel I have been banging on about for fifteen years as one of the funniest I have ever read, is available for the first time in an American edition. The story of a salesman kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity, Patrick Robertson shows that the skills that spell success in business are the same that psychopaths use to work their will on everyone else. Filled with such inarguable truths as

Failures are, on the whole, interesting people. Failures have gambled and lost, battled and been defeated, been conned, swindled, have dived and bobbed before realizing that the world has not been made for them to succeed in. They end up as small-town barkeepers, second-hand (but not antiquarian) booksellers, self-employed business consultants. Cooking is one of the skills common to most failures. For conversation they have the inexhaustible arsenal of a life of strenuous activity thwarted by bureaucracy, public indifference, or ‘other people’.

and

Alcohol is not the answer to all our problems. But if one removes from one’s life the problems that cannot be solved with alcohol, the path is clear. Families are a particular nuisance. Get rid of them as soon as possible. With them go all the other responsibilities which require sobriety: pets, in-laws, other parents, Sunday mornings.

Patrick Robertson has the wisdom we need in these troubled times. There are very few good books written about business; there are even fewer funny ones. Do something nice for yourself and buy this book.