Customer Reviews

God Is My Broker: A Monk-Tycoon Reveals the 7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Christopher Buckley is an accomplished writer of several genres, although his humor and wit when committed to paper are very special, and at times especially sharp edged. Sharp, as only a quick intellect, a novel view on life, and a willingness to bring humor where others fear to tread can be. As the Son of one of the most accomplished men of letters, he has created a style that is all his own, and which frequently, one imagines, causes Buckley The Elder to wince.

The photo on the inside of the jacket is a good visual summary of Mr. Buckley and John Tierney as could be staged. Taken, I believe, in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral a monk enigmatically robed and seated in the back of a limo, resembles one of the cloaked Jedi Knights of Star Wars fame. No Jedi he, as this is the Brother Ty that will lead you, the reader, to riches. Bracketed on either side of the Monk, stand the authors; both nattily dressed, raising their glasses of wine, more as a challenge than a salute. I am not familiar with Mr. Tierney's work, but whatever he contributed to this book is very well done.

Divine inspiration guides Brother Ty as he seeks to replenish the coffers of the Monastery he has joined, after alcohol and his failure as a stockbroker brought him to a contemplative life. However what he finds is an Order that is rapidly becoming extinct, the Monks are on food stamps, the treasury depleted, and it falls to him to save it.

What follows is a wickedly written satire on self-help books in general, and those that concentrate on business in particular. But this book is different, for it is infused with the divine, and as He created the world in 6 days and then rested, His picking of stocks and commodities not only is a sure play, it is here for all to learn.

Another great work from Mr. Buckley, this time with his co-conspirator, Mr. Tierney.

A few years ago Wendy Kaminer wrote a book, I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional, that took on self help books and programs. Now Christopher Buckley assigns himself the same task writing a fictional account of a monastery headed by an abbot who is a devotee of Deepak Chopra. It's a fluffy, hilarious, yet incisive probe that makes a lot of self help writers and their readers look silly. Its a slim book, but with about 3 laughs per page you get you're money's worth. Don't read it if you are a fan of Chopra, Robbins or Covey though, as I'm sure it will stunt your spiritual growth, and set you back on your path to make millions of dollars in this lifetime.

I feel I must WARN EVERYONE who has had RECENT surgery ...DO NOT READ this book till you are COMPLETELY healed. Pressure from laughing so hard could send you back to the hospital!

This is an extreemly humorous book detailing the path to success in life. I laughed aloud at the well written genuinely "true-to-life" situations Brother Ty narrates in this personal tale of his journey to "Spiritual AND Financial Growth." There is a very tender and heart touching element found in the development of the characters introduced in this story which makes it a delight to read. Also, as a minister myself, (protestant & Presbyterian...so pray for me, my Catholic friends!) I appreciated the accurate use of theology and Scripture found throughout the story, an element missing in many popular "self-help" books. Overall a great book about the insanity (and cure) found in our "growth" oriented modern society. I couldn't help visualizing how this will appear as a screen play. (Now that Robert Downey Jr. is "out and about," he has my vote for "Bro.Ty"!) A fun read that will leave you feeling good about life.

When I first saw this book displayed, my interest was piqued - it is highly unusual for a true Christian monk to be engaging in the whole business of financial advice, yet given the slew of books from the Chopras, Beardstown ladies, and other unlikely characters in the market today, I wasn't totally surprised. I bought it without my usual survey, and set down to reading it. It was apparent that after the first couple of chapters that this was fiction, and that Brother Ty was not who he says he is. I suspect that if he is that oxymoronic combination, a "monk-tycoon", if indeed he really exists at all, his collaboration with Buckly and Tierney is in the spirit of Anonymous and "Primary Colors". Yet, sadly, I saw elements of the truth in this whole novel - it takes very little to derail ones spiritual journey given the overwhelming temptations of the marketplace, and there are quite a few examples (too many) of this even in the religious community, although not often as egregious as the events in this book. God help us if this isn't fiction.

I truly struggled in the first couple of chapters in trying to determine whether this was a true story or fiction, as the authors masterfully build farce upon farce, skewering everything and everyone (a la Monty Python's "Life of Brian") until the final chapter, when the one all important truth is revealed - you can only get rich from a self-help book by writing one. Maybe "Brother Ty" can be coaxed into a sequel on a related topic, or an entirely different one.

Christopher Buckley's brilliant satire of get rich quick books and self help muck that might strike a bit too close to home, mocking catholicisms wanning prevelance in society and its eagerness to catch up with modern culture as well as the books themselves. Some might think it as obvious, and thus chastise it for being superficial. I like to think that it's blunt, and a little more truthfull to a somewhat touchy public making it less popular, as is common for true satires to be. Critics sometimes want satires to be subtle and vague, but Buckley once again presents his readers with the obvious hilarity rather than the mundane and snobbish.

"God Is My Broker", by Brother Ty, with Christopher Buckley and John Tierney, Audio Cassette, Bantam Doubleday, 1998.

This is a funny tape recording of the supposed self-help book, with "...the 7 ½ Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth", as written by a monk and previous Wall Street Stock Trader. Brother Ty cannot help his clients (or himself) to make any money on the market, so, he enters a monastery, where the claim to fame is making wine. Brother Ty wanted to conquer his drinking habit! When the Cana Monastery falls on hard financial times, Brother Ty turns to God and the monk's breviary to determine money-winning tips on the market. This is the first sub-plot in this complicated but funny book.

The second sub-plot is based upon the first Miracle of our Lord at the Wedding Feast of Cana, where He changed water into wine at the request of His Mother, Mary. Since the monastery is called Cana, you can bet that someone (?Brother Abbot?) will be attempting his own version of the wine-making miracle: this time to keep Federal Agents happy. Then, there's the investigating Italian Monsignor, representing the Vatican and Cardinal "Blutspieler"; this urbane Italian, interested in soccer (at least when Milan is playing), is also a wine connoisseur. He really does not like his German boss, the Cardinal "Blood-player", and therefore the Italian settles in for a long stay at the Cana Monastery, which by now has hired a good-looking lady to deal with the necessary television advertising. Of course, the wine is not being made at the Cana Monastery, but being imported from Chile, which means that Brother Ty has to continuously check with his "broker" to get tips to pay for the imported wine, and the improvements at the monastery, and so on.

The two, three, perhaps four sub-plots are tied together by the intermittent announcement of a pertinent law of "spiritual and financial" growth. One of the authors, or both, must have had training in the Catholic school system, since their comic references to Church affairs and internal politics, given with great reverence, are fairly accurate. This six hours tape recording helped me during many hours of heavy traffic on 495, the ring road around Boston.

When I first bought the book I thought it was a self-help book for recovering market losers (like me) to help me refocus into the spiritual aspects of life. As I read the book, I started wondering if the story was true. The later chapters seemed so absurd that it couldn't have been true. At the very end, it really was a pleasant surprise. What turned out to be a quest for self-help turned out to be a book that panned all the self-help gurus. Bravo to the authors! The witty biblical quotes and expressions were gems that kept me laughing. I only gave four stars because I found the Market Meditations at the end a bit too much.

Let's give credit to brother Ty for making us interested enough to read to the very end. I read this book in two days, and if you knew my schedule, you'd find it hard to believe. However, it is interesting to note, the purpose of this book is to make us aware that there are no such things as "Get Rich-Quick Schemes", and that the guy/gal whose pushing this type of literature is already rich. Remember the line "The only way to get rich, is to write a book yourself".

If you're at this site, then chances are you're sort of sick of business books. Probably, that's a kind way of saying it. Seeing another book by Stephen Covey or some other idiot spouting out laws, truths, and platitudes in big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books inscribed with fulsome praise from every other author of big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books probably makes you ill like you just ate something slimy that fell out of the nostril of a leprous hippopotamus.

Or else it makes you so angry that the rest of the business world (that is to say, all those bleating sheep that come up with words like "consens" and "mute points") expects you to converse in this stuff that you have to read it and be able to remember authors when you could be using your time more wisely like beating your head over and over and over again with bowling pin.

If that's the case, this is the book for you.

Buckley and Tierney have written the book that everyone who ever wanted to scream in despair and fury at The Oz Principle can worship. It is an excoriation of all the senseless business books that infect our lives.

It is the story of a group of monks who begin to become wealthy by pure happenstance (or perhaps through miracles) and find themselves suddenly regarded as business men. So, to run their business they hire marketing people, public relations people, and all begin to read books by Deepak Chopra and the like.

The result, as you might imagine, is not a very sound fiscal enterprise.

The wit is sharp and biting. It is required reading for anyone who ever read one of the 7 habits and thought that their life was changed.

It's an amazingly fresh example of why acumen, expertise, and intelligence can never be truly replaced.

It teaches the businessman to ignore the bleating of sheep.

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