Going steadily around the office is a book some of you may already have read or heard of. It’s called PopCo and it was written by Scarlett Thomas.
PopCo isn’t a great book by any stretch of critical opinion. I’ll rephrase that: PopCo isn’t a great story. It is, however, a great book. Interesting and revealing, we have all so far been captured by its premise. The revelations on cryptography are enough to make you wish you paid more attention in Maths whilst the insights into the workings of the company are equally fascinating for anyone in the business of marketing.
It fails, to a certain extent, by nature of the plot being a bit, well, irrelevant. Certainly the end is rushed and not half as interesting as the rest of the book. Parts which ramble on about animal rights are mostly interesting but sound a little more like a hysterical student rather than, say, Peter Singer.
For anyone reading this blog it’s a book that will hold the interest and reward the time spent reading. It’s not without its naïvety and it won’t help you pass any exams but it will provoke debate on a number of levels.
