Business Adventures
John Brooks wrote these twelve pieces for The New Yorker in the 1960s, and together they form a collection of business stories that has outlived almost everything written since. Brooks covers the flop of the Ford Edsel, a stock-market panic, the rise and fall of executives, and the strange case of a company that tried to claim a typo was a trade secret. What keeps the book alive is that Brooks is really writing about people: how leaders behave under pressure, and how the same mistakes repeat across decades. When Bill Gates asked Warren Buffett for his favorite business book, Buffett named this one and mailed Gates his own copy.
What you might want to know about Business Adventures
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Twelve classic New Yorker stories about Wall Street and corporate America, from a doomed Ford car to an insider-trading scandal.
Buffett named it his favorite business book when Gates asked in 1991 and sent Gates his own copy. Gates has since called it the best business book he has ever read, praising how it focuses on human nature rather than passing trends.
No. It is a collection of twelve standalone stories that John Brooks originally wrote for The New Yorker, each about a different episode in business or finance.
Business Adventures was written by John Brooks, published in 1969 by Weybright & Talley.
Business Adventures is 400 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Business Adventures takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
Business Adventures is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
