RESULTS

The book opens with Harry Joy, an advertising executive, having an out-of-body experience as he 'dies' from a heart attack. When he comes back to life, he is convinced that he is in hell. Since his wife is having an affair with his business partner, his son is selling drugs, and his daughter is a sexually precocious junkie, it is easy to see why Harry is convinced that his life is hell and why he feels a captive to it. As he seeks enlightenment, he meets Honey Barbara, an environmentally conscious prostitute with a heart of green. For the first time in his life, Harry Joy sees the world as it really is, and takes up a notebook to explore and note down the true nature of the Underworld.

Management Teaching use: The setting of this text is a small advertising agency. There are two major management issues raised. The first is that of ethics. How much should an advertising agency concern itself with the morality of its clients' businesses? And does any moral responsibility lie with the agency to expose unethical behaviour? The second theme is that of the dynamics of the team. Each member of this agency seems to be pursuing their own agenda, while the owner himself seems to lose interest and control.

Che is raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, the precocious son of radical Harvard students in the sixties. Yearning for his famous Outlaw parents, denied all access to television and the news, he takes hope from his long-haired teenage neighbour who predicts 'They will come for you, man. They'll break you out of here.' Soon Che too is an outlaw, fleeing down subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, as he is pitched into a journey that leads him to a hippy commune in the jungle of tropical Queensland. Here he slowly, bravely, confronts his life, learning that nothing is what it seems.

In Melbourne in the late 1940s, a young conservative poet named Christopher Chubb decides to teach his country a lesson about pretension and authenticity. But over the ensuing years, his audacious act of literary ventriloquism takes on a much darker resonance.

The day Benny Catchprice was fired from the spare-parts department of Catchprice Motors by his Aunt Cathy, was also the day that tax inspector Maria Takis arrived to begin her overdue audit of the family business.

Management Teaching use: The small business in this novel is problematic. None of the various members of the family who own a second-hand car sales lot seem to be sure who owns the business, what its financial position is. Previous strategic decisions are questioned. The class might debate how many small businesses really know enough about their day-to-day position, either financially or structurally? In addition to this the novel suggests some interesting sales and marketing topics. While the core product is selling cars it appears that peripheral financial products might be more profitable.

RU

If you are not a citizen of Voorstand, you may not be familiar with the strange case of Tristan Smith and his illegal appropriation of Bruder Mouse. Even if you are a citizen of Efica, you will only have heard rumours about the juggling, the Burro Plasse tunnel, and the border motel.