God is My Broker: A Monk-Tycoon Reveals the 7 1/2 Laws of Spiritual and Financial Growth

by Christopher Buckley, Brother Ty, John Tierney

Book Overview

This is an incredible story. The author, a failed, alcoholic Wall Street trader, had retreated to a monastery. It, too, was failing. Then, one fateful day, Brother Ty decided to let God be his... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375500065
• ISBN13: 9780375500060
• Release Date: March 1998
• Publisher: Random House (NY)
• Length: 197 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

A Classic From America's Foremost Satirist

Christopher Buckley's brilliant satire of get rich quick books and self help muck that might strike a bit too close to home, mocking catholicisms wanning prevelance in society and its eagerness to catch up with modern culture as well as the books themselves. Some might think it as obvious, and thus chastise it for being superficial. I like to think that it's blunt, and a little more truthfull to a somewhat touchy public making it less popular, as is common for true satires to be. Critics sometimes want satires to be subtle and vague, but Buckley once again presents his readers with the obvious hilarity rather than the mundane and snobbish.

Ignore the bleating of sheep!

If you're at this site, then chances are you're sort of sick of business books. Probably, that's a kind way of saying it. Seeing another book by Stephen Covey or some other idiot spouting out laws, truths, and platitudes in big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books inscribed with fulsome praise from every other author of big print, wide-margined, brightly colored business books probably makes you ill like you just ate something slimy that fell out of the nostril of a leprous hippopotamus. Or else it makes you so angry that the rest of the business world (that is to say, all those bleating sheep that come up with words like "consens" and "mute points") expects you to converse in this stuff that you have to read it and be able to remember authors when you could be using your time more wisely like beating your head over and over and over again with bowling pin. If that's the case, this is the book for you. Buckley and Tierney have written the book that everyone who ever wanted to scream in despair and fury at The Oz Principle can worship. It is an excoriation of all the senseless business books that infect our lives. It is the story of a group of monks who begin to become wealthy by pure happenstance (or perhaps through miracles) and find themselves suddenly regarded as business men. So, to run their business they hire marketing people, public relations people, and all begin to read books by Deepak Chopra and the like. The result, as you might imagine, is not a very sound fiscal enterprise. The wit is sharp and biting. It is required reading for anyone who ever read one of the 7 habits and thought that their life was changed. It's an amazingly fresh example of why acumen, expertise, and intelligence can never be truly replaced. It teaches the businessman to ignore the bleating of sheep. READ MORE AT INCHOATUS.COM

The secrets of self help books revealed??.

Christopher Buckley is an accomplished writer of several genres, although his humor and wit when committed to paper are very special, and at times especially sharp edged. Sharp, as only a quick intellect, a novel view on life, and a willingness to bring humor where others fear to tread can be. As the Son of one of the most accomplished men of letters, he has created a style that is all his own, and which frequently, one imagines, causes Buckley The Elder to wince.The photo on the inside of the jacket is a good visual summary of Mr. Buckley and John Tierney as could be staged. Taken, I believe, in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral a monk enigmatically robed and seated in the back of a limo, resembles one of the cloaked Jedi Knights of Star Wars fame. No Jedi he, as this is the Brother Ty that will lead you, the reader, to riches. Bracketed on either side of the Monk, stand the authors; both nattily dressed, raising their glasses of wine, more as a challenge than a salute. I am not familiar with Mr. Tierney's work, but whatever he contributed to this book is very well done.Divine inspiration guides Brother Ty as he seeks to replenish the coffers of the Monastery he has joined, after alcohol and his failure as a stockbroker brought him to a contemplative life. However what he finds is an Order that is rapidly becoming extinct, the Monks are on food stamps, the treasury depleted, and it falls to him to save it.What follows is a wickedly written satire on self-help books in general, and those that concentrate on business in particular. But this book is different, for it is infused with the divine, and as He created the world in 6 days and then rested, His picking of stocks and commodities not only is a sure play, it is here for all to learn.Another great work from Mr. Buckley, this time with his co-conspirator, Mr. Tierney.

A Health Warning to Heed!

I feel I must WARN EVERYONE who has had RECENT surgery ...DO NOT READ this book till you are COMPLETELY healed. Pressure from laughing so hard could send you back to the hospital!

An extreemly funny book revealing the road to true "success"

This is an extreemly humorous book detailing the path to success in life. I laughed aloud at the well written genuinely "true-to-life" situations Brother Ty narrates in this personal tale of his journey to "Spiritual AND Financial Growth." There is a very tender and heart touching element found in the development of the characters introduced in this story which makes it a delight to read. Also, as a minister myself, (protestant & Presbyterian...so pray for me, my Catholic friends!) I appreciated the accurate use of theology and Scripture found throughout the story, an element missing in many popular "self-help" books. Overall a great book about the insanity (and cure) found in our "growth" oriented modern society. I couldn't help visualizing how this will appear as a screen play. (Now that Robert Downey Jr. is "out and about," he has my vote for "Bro.Ty"!) A fun read that will leave you feeling good about life.