Book Review: Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists

The Imperfectionists is the first novel written by London-born journalist, Tom Rachman, who has lived and worked around the world.

The book takes a sad, satirical, yet realistic look at the eclectic world of the newspapers business and the quirky everyday characters that composites a newsroom.

Everyone, right from the chief editor to the copy editor to the foreign correspondent are covered and portrayed with some stinging accuracy.

Each individual’s story is broken into separate chapters in the book, with the Rome newspaper that they all work for as the single connecting thread between them.

The book receives many glowing reviews, including from reputed newspapers like the New York Times. This is quite an achievement considering the story centered on the newsrooms and journalists would be the first to slam Rachman’s book if they find it even remotely offensive or silly.

As someone who works in a newspaper company, I enjoyed the book very much and do find some portrayal of characters in the book, much similar to real-life colleagues in the newsroom! My wife,Rachel, shares the same sentiment with me after she read the book upon my recommendation.

I bought the book from a Kinokuniya bookstore in Bangkok, but it should be available in major bookstores in Singapore too.

Do grab a copy if you are someone working in the newspaper business or if you are curious about how a newsroom operates and the quirks of the real-life characters that runs it.