Galley Talk

Georgie Lewis, Marketing Specialist, Powells.com

Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 7/25/2005

I'm really enjoying The Ape in the Corner Office, coming from Crown in September. The subtitle, Understanding the Office Beast in All of Us, made me think it would be an intriguing read, and it was better than I expected. It's about animal behavior, primal instincts, reading body language—and the revelations in it are really fun. Part of what makes it so good is the writing. The author, Richard Conniff, is a correspondent for National Geographic and used to be a business journalist. He shows that in a social environment, generosity, cooperation and being kind work better for communities, in society and in the office. I think it could appeal to the Freakonomics crowd and to Malcolm Gladwell's audience. It's marketed as a business book, but I think it should also be marketed as pop sociology—it could be a real handseller.

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