As most any naturalist with a healthy interest in words does, I’ve long enjoyed the past-time of venereal  – or collective – nouns. From the traditional, widely known, and more-or-less official – an exhalation of larks, a school of fish, a pack of wolves – to the playful and decidedly unofficial – an aroma of skunks, an annoyance of Eurasian Collared-Doves, a busyness of squirrels – there is delight to be taken from all the ways the creatures of this planet have been collectively described based upon some quality or characteristic they possess. Indeed, so say I, it is one of the most charming elements of the literature of natural history.

The world of business, however, is not particularly (and by “particularly” I of course mean “at all”) known for its verbal playfulness, which is why I was both surprised and metaphorically tickled when Mark Avery recently directed me to the recently published Bear Markets and Beyond; a Bestiary of Business Terms from Pavilion Books. An assemblage of animal-based terms from the worlds of business and finance, collected, explained, and illustrated by the team of Dhruti Shah and Dominic Bailey, Bear Markets and Beyond is a work that is as useful in what it presents as it is charming in the manner in which it is presented.

Alphabetically arranged and illustrated in a playfully colourful style, Bear Markets and Beyond provides a very handy reference guide for all those times you’ve found yourself reading or listening to a news report that included a reference to an animal that – unless you happen to be familiar with business banter or financial fustian – simply makes no sense in relation to the story being told. Sometimes the animal referenced is widely known and its symbolic meaning understood, such as when Sean Williams writes in The Motley Fool that, “[t]he stage is set for a potentially epic bull market to take shape with Joe Biden in the White House.” most would be expected to understand that the bovine referenced indicates a run-up of values in the stock market. But what about  a “deer market” or an “anaconda mortgage?” I hadn’t the slightest clue what these were (and I’ve got an MBA) – until I read this helpful little book.

From representations of events (“black swan,” “grey swan,” “bunny market”) and types of people in the business world (“mole,” “owl,” “ostrich”) to groupings of national economies (“lion,” “civet”) and types of currency specific bonds (“kangaroo,” “kiwi,” “bulldog”), the number and variety of creatures referenced in regard to various aspects of, or phenomena within, the business and financial worlds is quite remarkable. My personal favorite is the use of hamsters in the application of the German word Hampsterkauf to denote the type of panic buying of toilet rolls, pasta, and other staple goods most of us recently witnessed at the CoVid-19 pandemic.

However Bear Markets and Beyond, despite its admittedly brief entries and colourful illustrations, is more than simply a charming little divertive book; it provides a number of historical explanations for terms you have likely heard (bear and bull markets, for example; panda diplomacy, for another) as well as corrects misunderstandings of terms that, while in and likely long to remain in widespread use for their incorrect reference (as in the aforementioned ostrich), it’s nice to see factually corrected. Indeed, many is the time in my reading of it that I found myself remarking “I didn’t know that!” – which to me is a key market of a book that is both well worth reading as well as keeping on and for future reference.

While I recommend Bear Markets and Beyond for everyone who enjoys bit of playful fun along with the learning of some quite interesting and useful things (particularly in regard to the previously referenced “anaconda montage” – a truly nasty piece of work that should be much more widely known than it is), I particularly recommend it to all those working in the worlds of business or finance, either for themselves or as a gift to a colleague; perhaps a second copy as well to keep in the office for a quick check just in case your boss tells you that it will be much to your credit if you can find a purple squirrel for the company.

Title: Bear Markets and Beyond; a Bestiary of Business Terms

Author: Dhruti Shah, illustrated by Dominic Bailey

Publisher: Pavilion

Imprint: Portico

Format: Hardback & eBook

ISBN: 9781911622468

Date: October 2020

In accordance with Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255, it is disclosed that the copy of the book read in order to produce this review was provided gratis to the reviewer by the publisher.