Another book that I got from my mother, she knows I liked Mrożek’s short stories when I read some of them for the first time in high school and this collection was just too good to pass.

The word for word translation of the title is ‘Chocolates for the chairman/CEO’ and it is a collection of short stores about a fictional office and it’s employees. The level of absurd is sky-high and yet some of the stories sound familiar, in the end, the corporate reality is not always that different from office work in communism. All characters are described by their function in the office, there are no names, they all want to work as little as possible while at the same time making an impression of hard work and getting Chairman’s approval. Now that I’m writing the review it is a bit like a better version of The Office.

As the stories are just a few pages long each I won’t be going into the details, especially that they do work better as a collection as the absurdity mounts from one to another. The book had me laughing out loud all the time and reading passages to my Bigger Half through half the evening. Unfortunately, it is not available in English, but the story I liked most in high school is – The Elephant. Give it a shot if you have a chance, it will make your day.

Did you notice the well-camouflaged smoker in the picture?

This is book #12 of my 20 Books of Summer hosted by Cathy at 746books.
See my list as it grows here.

Photo by Violetta Kaszubowska @vkphotospace.com