Who Moved My Blackberry? [Paperback]

Lucy Kellaway (Author), Martin Lukes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2008

Martin Lukes is a superstar at the office and at home -- just ask him. Blessed with an ego the size of Mount Everest and virtually no sense of self, he blusters through life with cheerful obliviousness. Who Moved My BlackBerry™? is the uproarious e-epistolary story of one spectacularly bad year in his life, during which Martin hires an executive coach to help him achieve "22.5 percent better than my bestest," only to inadvertently insult his new boss, watch his wife get a job that threatens to eclipse his own, and allow his BlackBerry™ -- complete with racy e-mails to his secretary/lover -- to fall into the hands of his juvenile delinquent son. This novel is set in an office so dysfunctional, it’s bound to strike a chord with any nine-to-fiver. Comic schadenfreude at its best!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Acutely and hilariously observed. If there's one book every ambitious manager should read it's this one." -- Evening Standard, London

"He's obnoxious, but Martin's delusions are so unmistakably real that they'll make you laugh till your eyes water . . ." -- Fortune

"If there is any justice in the world, this book should become an instant classic." -- Financial Times magazine, London

"Much funnier than the contents of any actual out-box." -- New York Times

"This funny and perceptive novel cannot be recommended too highly." -- London Sunday Times

About the Author

Lucy Kellaway is a regular columnist at the Financial Times of London. She created the character Martin Lukes in that column, the Financial Times' most popular.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (April 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401308910
• ISBN-13: 978-1401308919
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,228 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A light-hearted dig, best enjoyed over a weekend or while waiting for a connecting flight., January 4, 2006

By 

David Rasquinha (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

I have long been addicted to the Financial Times and Lucy Kellaway's weekly column ([e-mail]) on the doings and misdoings of Martin Lukes is one of the many high points of this excellent newspaper.

We have all - well most of us - known a Martin Lukes in our own offices as well. Obsessed with himself to the exclusion of all others, he blunders ahead with the finesse of a bull, frequently stumbling into a mess, yet somehow managing to extricate himself unbowed, if a little bloodied. Lucy Kellaway also has Lukes fall for every new corporate fad or trend, be it serious or merely the flavor of the month. Thus Lukes acquires a life coach (complete with the latest jargon), is caught up in corporate re-branding, dabbles with his version of corporate social responsibility and even dips a toe into outsourcing business processes to India. In the process Kellaway has great fun in parodying some of the wilder excesses of these corporate herd movements.

This book is no searching examination of business or corporate life so do not look for any major insights. It is a light-hearted dig, best enjoyed over a weekend or while waiting for a connecting flight. For regular readers of Kellaway's column, there will obviously be some déjà vu - still it is good to have several columns put together in this book. I have reduced a star more out of a personal preference - I found the humor in the weekly columns like a dash of sauce; however reading the book in a few sittings seems to dampen the flavor with some amount of overkill. All in all, a nice read for yourself or a good casual gift to a friend or business colleague.

Incidentally, the US edition cover in garish orange is a disaster and will turn away many readers. I much prefer the understated British cover with the Post-it Notes and comments.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An amusing look at corporate ambition, January 21, 2006

By 

Simon Withers (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

I once read a book (Beyond Beef by Jeremy Rifkin) that claimed the level of bovine excreta was becoming a danger to the planet's environment. Lucy Kellaway is a journalist who has long been concerned about this problem in the corporate environment.

Her creation, Martin Lukes, is well known to readers of the Financial Times. He's an arrogant, selfish, self-obsessed, insecure and ambitious marketing director in the London office of a fictitious Fortune 500 company. By publishing a collection of his emails each week, she allows us to follow his rollercoaster career and personal life, and his adoption of every corporate and marketing fad that comes along.

Martin Lukes compensates for his limited intelligence and talent with unbounded ambition. His relentless clawing up the corporate pole and poor judgement often lead to disaster, but somehow he survives and moves forward.

We all know at least one Martin Lukes. That is why the column has proved to be both compelling and amusing. Lucy Kellaway, through Martin, also introduces us to a collection of recognisable corporate and domestic characters, and fires round after round into the mumbo-jumbo that passes for strategy and public relations in some companies. I mainly cringed, often smiled and sometimes laughed out loud while reading her book.

"Who Moved My Blackberry" is a reworking of Martin Luke's weekly emails into a 13 month December to December book which, like a diary, tells the story of his life over a year. For those who read the weekly column in the FT, it could be a little too much. Whereas one column is an amusing weekly read in an otherwise dry newspaper, nearly 400 pages in book form is probably a bit much. The story has changed enough to make it slightly annoying to those familiar with the column, but not enough to warrant re-reading.

For those who have not read the weekly column, this will be an amusing adventure. The emails are short and are written in conversational English, so the book is easy to read in small or large doses. The characters are come across clearly and are uncomfortably familiar.

The reader must bear in mind that "Who Moved My Blackberry" is written from a British perspective. There are a number of amusing and very unattractive US managerial stereotypes - and none that are worthy of admiration. Having said that, the author is just as harsh on the British side and I can't recall one character who leaves a favourable impression. Thanks to the Lord that Lucy (apparently) hasn't come across many Australians.

The cover to the UK edition is an inspired work of art that sums up perfectly Martin Lukes' work environment. If there is an award for Dust Jacket of the Year, this should be a nominee. For some reason, known only to the publishers, the US edition appears to have a different cover.

There is a bit of Martin Lukes in all of us. Sometimes I'm writing something that has a familiar feel to it but I can't quite place it. The it comes to me: I'm writing like Martin Lukes! So I check myself and start again. And say thank you to Lucy Kellaway for doing her bit to reduce the level of BS in the world.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and intelligent story of office drama during modern times, September 25, 2005

By 

Stefano N. Bury (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry? (Hardcover)

I got this book for my birthday from my boss, since he knows I'll be graduating from college in less than a year and will enter the real world, finally! I had read Lucy Kellaway's stories in the Financial Times before and knew this would be a very smart, quick-witted, corporate comedy book. I read the prologue and it was all in e-mail format. I thought that was pretty cool. But as I flipped over the pages I noticed the WHOLE book is in email format, and most of the time it's the main character the only one who sends the emails. Some might be put off by this, but as I read on I became hooked on it. To sum it up (and not destroy the ending), the book takes the reader in a modern day office drama. There are several themes in the book that we see spring up so often nowadays, such as the rebranding of the company and the endless motivational programs set by upper management to keep every employee motivated and in line. It also portrays the mid-management employee very well, with his tireless efforts at lobbying upper management to get a better job, while during his journey he gets the help from a professional and personal life coach.

A great page turner. I read the book on a DUB-JFK flight, in less than 6 hours. I would give this book 6 starts, if it were available.