Liar's Poker meets The Tipping Point meets Mad Men-a hilarious, personal, and sneakily profound chronicle of the past, present, and future of the advertising business.

Adland is a book about advertising. Which is to say, it's a book about every issue and aspect of life on our morally conflicted, culturally challenged, ubiquitously branded planet.

On one level it's the wickedly funny, compelling personal chronicle of the rise and fall of a modern-day ad man; a riveting insider's look at the astonishing transformation taking place in advertising's hottest idea factories; and an introduction to the people whose job is to know what makes us tick, what makes us lean in, what we think we need and don't know that we want.

But take a step back from the tales of lavish shoots, agencies on the brink, and pampered mega-brands and Adland becomes much more: a snapshot of how we live our lives on this earth at this particular moment . . . thirty seconds at a time.

Funny, profound, deeply thoughtful, and utterly unique, this book is both a wildly amusing ride in Adland, brilliantly recounted, and an exploration of the value of life in the information age.

JAMES P. OTHMER was an award-winning creative director and copywriter for more than twenty years at advertising giants including Young & Rubicam and N.W. Ayer. An excerpt from his acclaimed first novel The Futurist was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.