These great novels about business tackle all aspects of the business world, from leaders and followers to entrepreneurs and financiers, office politics, horrible bosses, corporate tycoons, self-made billionaires, and so much more. Take a break from standard business books and try these great novels about business.

1. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolff

via pinterest.com

“Sherman McCoy, the central figure of Tom Wolfe’s first novel, is a young investment banker with a fourteen-room apartment in Manhattan. When he is involved in a freak accident in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, the police, the clergy, and assorted hustlers high and low close in on him, licking their chops and giving us a gargantuan helping of the human comedy, of New York in the 1980s, a city boiling over with racial and ethnic hostilities and burning with the itch to Grab It Now.”

2. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

via pinterest.com

“No one knows us in quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the Chicago ad agency depicted in Joshua Ferris’s exuberantly acclaimed first novel is family at its best and worst, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.”

3. Startup by Riko Radojcic

“Professor Andrija Krstic is a bright man pursuing leading edge research in semiconductor technology. But when an opportunity for financing an Artificial Intelligence high tech startup presents itself, he embraces the opportunity even though the seed money is offered by an odd and somewhat suspicious Armenian oligarch. Krstic finds himself trying to balance two disparate worlds―that of a high tech Silicon Valley startup racing toward the 21st century’s technological future, and that of shady wealth rooted in the collapse of the Soviet empire. The professor knows he must do the right thing while fending off the pressure from the Armenian oligarch who has probably told him too much.”

4. The Financier by Theodore Dreiser

via pinterest.com

“In The Financier, Dreiser describes the early life of Cowperhood in Philadelphia, beginning with his first transaction in an auction at the age of 17. This is followed by his rapid rise with jobs at Henry Waterman & Company, and Tighe & Company, forming his own business and trading on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.

“After the rise comes a fall, as the narrative chronicles his bankruptcy, prison sentence and the restoration of his fortune, also covering his divorce and remarriage. The Financier is an early example of a realistic novel where the chief protagonist is neither hero nor villain, and with detailed portrayals of the characters, settings and activities.”

Also check out An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

5. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

via pinterest.com

“Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.

“Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night—with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get her a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not it’s worth the price of her soul.”

6. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

via pinterest.com

“The astonishing and riveting tale of a man’s journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon, it steals its shape from the business self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over ‘rising Asia.’ It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along.”

7. A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

via pinterest.com

“A Hologram for the King takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy’s gale-force winds. In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment — and a moving story of how we got here.”

8. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

via pinterest.com

“A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson’s most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.”

9. Something Happened by Joseph Heller

via pinterest.com

“Something Happened is Joseph Heller’s wonderfully inventive and controversial second novel satirizing business life and American culture. The story is told as if you were overhearing the patter of Bob Slocum’s brain—recording what is going on at the office, as well as his fantasies and memories that complete the story of his life. The result is a novel as original and memorable as his Catch-22.”

10. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

via pinterest.com

“The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.

“Recalling The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, The White Tiger is narrative genius with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation—and a startling, provocative debut.”

Receive top book recommendations directly in your inbox.

Try Audible Premium Plus and Get Up to Two Free Audiobooks