The Business of Business Books

Rachel BridgeRachel Bridge, author of Ambition: Why it’s good to want more and how to get it, is an extraordinary woman. I interviewed her on the Extraordinary Book Club Podcast recently, and her energetic, creative approach to writing made me reflect on how things are changing across the board. 

Rachel and I hooked up in the first place simply because I bought her book on one of our ritual family trips to Waterstones in Basingstoke: once a month or so I take the kids in, we all choose a book, and then we head upstairs to Café Nero and ignore each other happily for an hour or so, each immersed in our chosen world.* Rachel’s was the book I bought – I loved the stark challenge of the title, that ambivalent word, which feels simultaneously stirring and disturbing, and particularly intriguing because written by a woman. (We talk more about this in the podcast.) I took a picture of the book beside my skinny cappuccino and was about to tweet it when, on a whim, I searched for Rachel on Twitter. I found her, tagged her in the tweet, and settled down to read. Within a few minutes the response came back, and within an hour we had an interview set up. Boom.

Here’s the full post, in a blog for BookMachine…