Company

Stephen Jones is a shiny new hire at Zephyr Holdings. From the outside, Zephyr is just another bland corporate monolith, but behind its glass doors business is far from usual: the beautiful receptionist is paid twice as much as anybody else to do nothing, the sales reps use self help books as manuals, no one has seen the CEO, no one knows exactly what they are selling, and missing donuts are the cause of office intrigue. While Jones originally wanted to climb the corporate ladder, he now finds himself descending deeper into the irrational rationality of company policy. What he finds is hilarious, shocking, and utterly telling.

Max Barry is Australian, for which he apologizes.? He is the author of Company, Jennifer Government, and the cult hit Syrup, although he spelled his name 'Maxx' for that novel because it seemed like a funny joke about marketing, without realizing everyone would assume he was a pretentious twit. He was born on March 18, 1973, and lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he writes full-time, the advantage being that he can do it while wearing boxer shorts. Max has a fantastic website and blog, www.maxbarry.com; nearly 1,000 Facebook fans; 1,100 followers on Twitter; and a sterling reputation on reddit.com.