JOHN MCLAREN
The Barchester Group chairman reviews Alice Schroeder's biography of Warren Buffett. It's a well-executed book, but he fears few will benefit from its lessons. He likens Buffett tackling the markets to Vladimir Ashkenazy playing Chopin. 'You won't match him by flicking through Piano for Dummies.'
DAVID BOLCHOVER
Bolchover contributes regular opinion columns on the workplace for various national papers. His last book, The Living Dead, was based on his experience of several years of highly paid inactivity in an office. Here he turns his attention to mood, a hugely underrated component of personal and company success.
DAVE EASTBURY
The illustrator of our mood feature has a glass that is sometimes half-full. Regular pay from The Beano covers the mortgage, and Eastbury uses his editorial work to put food on the table. 'I'm optimistic the phone will ring,' he says, 'but looking at my bank balance, the glass tends to be half-empty.'
EMMA DE VITA
For her feature on craftsmen, MT's resident cyclist travelled to Derby to meet Mercian, which still makes bicycles by hand. Paul Smith was so impressed that he commissioned his own line. De Vita wanted to do the same. 'A range of MT bikes would cater for the debonair business commuter in all of us.'
