My enormous thanks to Michelle Stannard at Digivolve Media for putting me in touch with Tom Brown so that we can stay in together to chat all about Tom’s brand new book. I love finding out about unusual texts and I think Tom’s book fits that perfectly! Let’s find out what he told me:

Staying in with Tom Brown

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Tom and thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Thank you for having me Linda.

I rather think I know Tom, but tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it?

I’ve brought The Corporate Menagerie. The Corporate Menagerie is a book about people, their behaviours and relationships and uses animals and other creatures as the human analogies. This anthropomorphising seemed to me a neat way of achieving my twin objectives for the book, which is to educate and entertain, and to reach the widest potential audience. Most of the characters are known to me – and indeed will be recognisable to many readers – as people I have met, worked with, or enjoyed a relationship with during my lifetime, many through business, hence the title.

The Corporate Menagerie sounds fascinating Tom and I understand it is out today so very many congratulations. What can we expect from an evening with The Corporate Menagerie?

My inspiration and motivation for The Corporate Menagerie derives from my experience of working with a diverse range of individuals over the years, which has given rise to a deep-seated belief that many have a limited understanding of how to relate to people on an individual level or to manage, motivate, and collaborate with others.

Ha! Having worked with literally thousands of people through my own career Tom, I totally agree! 

I wanted to produce something different from the academic, technical approach and the plethora of books on the subject of human behaviour and to strike a balance between knowledge and enjoyment. To elaborate on the uniqueness of The Corporate Menagerie, the narrative is provided in verse, and the challenge here was to use different poetic styles and length to maintain interest and enjoyment for the reader.

That sounds quite a challenge. I’m intrigued by The Corporate Menagerie. What else have you brought along and why have you brought it?

I’ve brought a couple of illustrations as I decided at the outset that The Corporate Menagerie needed to be illustrated to enhance its appeal. I did not want to use cartoon type illustrations as I felt this might reduce the integrity of the content and I managed to find an excellent illustrator who understood my desire for classy illustrations that would illuminate the message from each character.

Thanks so much for staying in with me to chat about The Corporate Menagerie Tom. Happy publication day and I hope it does really well for you. 

Thanks Linda. It feels quite daunting putting my book up for evaluation by experienced, qualified people and I will keep my fingers crossed that it has some appeal for you.

I’m sure it will! Let me give blog readers a little more information:

The Corporate Menagerie

The Corporate Menagerie is a study in human behaviour and relationships, which uses animals, birds, insects and even the odd dinosaur to portray the diverse human characters whom Tom has met throughout his life and his work.

Here, you will explore a wide range of ‘people’ issues from leadership, personal development, emotional intelligence, and some of the more sensitive topics such as diversity, bullying and absence management.

These creature analogies combine serious topics in a poetic, thoughtful and light-hearted way, to highlight issues that affect us all. The Corporate Menagerie is a great learning tool or simply an entertaining and enjoyable read.

The Corporate Menagerie is available for purchase here.

About Tom Brown

Tom is a Chartered Banker (MICBS) by profession and spent 28 years working for RBS until 1997, latterly as Chief Manager (Retail Banking).

Since then,  he has been owner/manager of Training Concepts (TCL), which specialises in the design and delivery of soft skills development programmes. During this time, the Company has gained four National Training Awards.

Additionally, from time to time, Tom has acted as an external student project evaluator at Edinburgh Napier University Business School.

In tandem with Tom’s work for his business, and being a prolific reader, he has, since leaving the financial services industry, cultivated a keen interest in writing, particularly poetry, which has resulted in him producing a number of short stories and poems, none of which he has, so far, sought to publish.

Tom did, however, in 2018, self-publish a niche Book, Pride of Lions, which captured Celtic Football Club’s unique and successful pursuit of the European Cup in 1967 which stills sells steadily. As a result of this relative success, Tom undertook to produce The Corporate Menagerie which he is once more self-publishing. He did not pursue a publishing deal for either Book.

Tom is 69, and lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Alison. He has four grown up children and five grandchildren and enjoys all sports, especially football and cricket, reading and music. Writing is Tom’s passion.

You can find out more by visiting Tom’s website, finding him on Facebook or following him on Twitter @TomBrownAuthor1.