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Nyla Nox
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Graveyards of the Banks - I did it for the money: Seven Seasons of Midnights at the Most Successful Bank in the Universe Kindle Edition

by Nyla Nox (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 out of 5 stars 25 ratings
“Perhaps she did see the beast in the eye.” Joris Luyendijk, The Guardian
Nyla is not a hero. She works the graveyard shift from midnight to morning. Her life is hectic and her soul is slowly drying out. She is shouted at, constantly afraid of being culled and not even allowed toilet breaks. Nyla works inside the Building without a Name, at the most successful American investment bank in the city of London, but she is not a banker. She is one of many desperate humanities graduates who struggle and scrape to survive in the zero hours job of graphics operators, bullied by hordes of bankers in expensive suits who treat her as less-than-human while they boast of being 'leaders', members of a superior species. The entrance to the Bank, built on plague and exploitation, is through a medieval graveyard where Nyla has her breakfast sitting on the gravestones. Starting out deep in the Third Basement, Nyla is lucky to advance to the notorious Seventh Floor of the Bank with its filthy kitchen and flea infested carpets, forced to fight others for survival every night. The Bank’s masters are fervent believers in the Elimination of the Unfit. Predators to a man! Nyla is their prey.

After a life time frittered away in the unprofitable humanities, Nyla needs the money. And as hope and dignity are stripped away, night after grueling night in the haunted halls of incredible profit, she wonders if there is even a world left outside the Most Successful Bank in the Universe.
Follow Nyla inside if you dare and discover a world that very few have ever seen.
This book is dark, heartfelt and emotional but it is also witty and astonishing, throwing a new light on every day experiences.

“A modern-day Boschesque purgatory. It’s the death of a thousand cuts: a steady, minute chipping away of sensitivities, of sensibilities, of defences, of any sense of normality, that make the story get slowly but inexorably under your skin. It’s rampant capitalism’s ugly underbelly, a hugely apt and relevant tale for us right now.”
Noel Maurice, indielit
“Financial fiction meets Dante’s Inferno meets The Office. Wow. This was an amazing, moving book. The main character was me; I haven’t connected with a book like this in a long, long time.” Aaron Hoos, Financial Fiction
“If you want to know more about investment banking from a totally unique perspective, and you dare, go for it. A fascinating book.”
Olga Miret, Lit World Review
“Are top investment banks ‘deliberate social Darwinist systems’? At the time this struck me as perhaps extreme, but reading Nyla’s experiences perhaps she did see the beast in the eye.”
Joris Luyendijk, The Guardian

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  1. Book 1 of 3
    Graveyards of the Banks
  2. Print length
    197 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publication date
    2 Mar. 2015
  5. File size
    412 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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There are 3 books in this series.
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Product description

About the Author

Nyla Nox lives an exciting double life. She has been writing articles on the (in)-human side of banking for many years, particularly about the lives of jobless humanities graduates who are forced to serve the richest bankers in the world. Her unique knowledge of this extremely secretive world is the inspiration for the ‘Graveyards of the Banks trilogy’ or the ‘The War and Peace of Investment Banking’ as Nyla likes to call it. ‘Graveyards of the Banks’ is based on Nyla’s real life experience at the Most Successful Bank in the Universe (not its real name), where very few outsiders have ever set foot. Nyla also writes stories about fantastical creatures and imaginary futures. Her work has been included in numerous collections. Her articles appear in Business Insider, Open Democracy, mergers&inquisitions and efinancialcareers where they were translated into German, French and Mandarin. Read all about Nyla’s world at http://www.nylanox.com/. Graveyards of the Banks Volume 1 – I did it for the Money Volume 2 – Monsters Arising Volume 3 – Slaughterhouse Morning

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00U7HRVNK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Athens Publishers (2 Mar. 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 412 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 197 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ B0874PF8BS
  • Customer reviews:
    3.9 out of 5 stars 25 ratings

About the author

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Nyla Nox

Nyla Nox

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Nyla Nox leads an exciting double life.

She writes novels and articles about the secret lives inside the Big Banks in the City of London, the dark heart of capitalism.

Her trilogy 'Graveyards of the Banks' is based on Nyla's personal experience of seven years of working on the night shift inside the Most Successful Banks in the Universe, a hell of broken dreams where jobless humanities graduates work zero hours contracts next to the best paid bankers on earth. But Nyla knows all their secrets...

Follow Nyla Nox and her adventures on facebook and twitter!

https://www.facebook.com/NylaNox

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3.9 out of 5 stars
25 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Donald McLeman
    5.0 out of 5 stars The stranglehold of the banking system and the intricate twists and turns of the human lives that it throttles
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 May 2015
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    A gripping account. A lesser book would talk about 'human hearts'. But these are real lives made of hormones and emotions. The people are subject to the everyday push and pull of private internal conflicts, struggling with demands thown up by the practicalities of existence, forever knocking against someone else pushing past in their own trajectory. These details are played out against a deeper force that's driving everyone and no one sees it.

    Nyla Nox reveals a remarkable understanding of the forces behind this cruel stage. She shows the divide between bankers scrambling for their own need to get ahead at whatever cost and the people around them that they push past, barely registering them as people at all. We see that however ruthless they are they too are victims of a more ruthless system. The most important point here is that Nyla Nox allows the reader to see this - the people being driven in these conflicts are unaware of the forces acting on them and even unaware that there's anything wrong at all with how they're behaving or how they're being made to behave. It's remarkable to see this coldness alongside the subtle observations of humanity that the author lays down on the page.

    Underpinning it all is the bank, built on graveyards and plague. There's a grim vision here. The onward crush through time of a system free of human values and the insignificant people it pushes beneath it.

    I recommend every page but most of all the cliffhanger that has me longing for the next installment.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Slob
    4.0 out of 5 stars Has an impact
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2015
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    I want to know which bank she worked for (although I have made an educated guess) and will read the next one. Is this the kind of environment the establishment want us all to work in? It's sounds horrendous and I think I have worked in some pretty awful places.
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  • Tracey Martin
    5.0 out of 5 stars What it's really like to work for a bank.....
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2015
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    It is notoriously difficult to write interestingly about work - especially the work that most people do sitting in front of their computer screens all day - or in Nyla's case, all night. But Nyla has managed to do this magnificently - her account is gripping and thoroughly readable. She cleverly weaves her own experience with reflections on the anthropological and political implications of the work she is doing. The book is thoroughly topical and yet another reminder of why our economic and banking system needs to change radically to incorporate the values of justice and respect for human beings that our politicians claim to care about so much - at the same time as they are hobnobbing with the banks. Nyla's entertaining and original voice takes us into a world most of us know nothing about and enables us to feel what it would be like to be there. I can’t wait to read the next book…..
    One person found this helpful
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  • Heather Randell
    5.0 out of 5 stars I was hooked!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 February 2017
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    I wasn't quite sure of the style when I first delved into this book, but after a few pages I really was hooked. It's a very well-written story which I was surprisingly able to relate to, and I think that's down to the writing and characterisation. It's super interesting. I will be recommending it!
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  • Ellen Bard
    5.0 out of 5 stars A disturbing and engaging book about a toxic work environment with a dark sense of humour
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 September 2015
    This is an unusual piece of literature in that it’s about work; there are surprisingly few of these out there. Despite the fact work makes up a huge amount of our daily lives, it’s hard to write engagingly about the topic (notable exceptions are the police force and other more ‘exciting’ professions).

    This is about a toxic workplace, ‘the most successful bank in the universe’ (draw your own conclusions). It’s a look at a micro environment of the graveyard shift in a graphics centre, which at the same time points to wider problems and injustices in the macro environment of the financial services industry.

    It’s can be a difficult book to read, full of examples of the darker side of human nature, the noxious environment bringing out the worst in the people who work there. I had to put it down a few times, as the atmosphere of the book painted a picture so bleak I almost couldn’t continue to read. But the narrator (the story is based on the real life experiences of the author) pulls you through the story, admitting to her own shame in being complicit in some of the bullying, and it bringing out the worst in her, as she tries to earn enough to eat and live in London, hoping for a different life and career before the bank breaks her. The narrator also has a black sense of humour that tugs you through to the end as you keep your fingers crossed she’ll make it out of there.

    This is the first in a trilogy of well-written and interesting prose that makes us realise we all have a darker side, and if we’re put in the right (wrong?) environment, we too could turn away from injustice and brutality and ‘do it for the money’. (
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars She takes what could (and must often) have been an unpleasantly stressful and horrible working environment—graveyard shift in th
    Reviewed in the United States on 3 January 2016
    Verified Purchase
    from Karen: "A bank next to a graveyard. What could be the connection? In this first volume of the trilogy of novels Graveyards of the Banks, the valiant Nyla Nox shrouds them together in ways that are unexpected, absorbing, and even deliciously amusing. She takes what could (and must often) have been an unpleasantly stressful and horrible working environment—graveyard shift in the graphics department of a bank—and turns it into the subject of an almost anthropological study of a cold space. Survival of the Fittest. The Third Basement. The Global Center for Excellence. The Most Successful Bank in the Universe. Nyla muses on all that she perceives in the towering London edifice, mercilessly deconstructing not only the physical landscape but those souls who pass through its chambers. This offers fascinating insights into some of the anachronistic absurdities taking place in the dark hours of a leading bank. Along the way the reader is treated, rightfully so, to unapologetic self-reflection and cynicism. Peppered throughout the pages too are gems of historical and universal insight that cause both despair and a wary optimism. Yet the final pages of I Did it for the Money raise the spectre of a new nightmare in Nyla’s life. How will she deal with this latest challenge? Volume Two should promise some answers."
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  • Justin Murphy
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great story
    Reviewed in the United States on 18 May 2015
    Verified Purchase
    This is the author's account of her time working in a department of a US investment bank in London that produces (in a desktop publishing sense) pitch books for the bankers. The bank is not identified but it describes itself as the best bank in the world, so it should be JP Morgan unless the bank's self-description is inaccurate (others may not agree). I used to work in an American bank in London and I was unaware of this document production function, but the account certainly rings true. I was shocked by the working conditions of the author and her colleagues. Is it legal in the UK to make people undertake not to join a trade union? It is a useful reminder that only a tiny number of the people working in an investment bank are mega-rich bankers.

    It's a good read and I look forward to the sequel.
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  • Deepak Pandya
    5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling Read
    Reviewed in the United States on 26 September 2015
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    Graveyards of the Banks is a deeply troubling book about exploitation embedded within the culture of greed and materialism. The Narrator a humanities graduate, seeking financial stability is excited to procure a job with a well-regarded Bank, perhaps one of the top five in the world. What she finds within its dingy insides is an oppressive caste system where the lives of the lowest are dependent on the whims of the higher-ups. Worse than the bullying and shaming she faces is the uncertainty of having her shift cut and being deprived of the bare sustenance the job promised her. This book alerts us to what we may choose to deny - the human rights abuses that go on within banks and within many other industries where millions strive to merely exist. Can’t wait to read book two, ‘MONSTERS ARISING’, which is also available now.
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  • mobettah
    5.0 out of 5 stars I will not explain the plot as other reviewers have ...
    Reviewed in the United States on 12 August 2016
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    I will not explain the plot as other reviewers have done that very well. This is an interesting and very engrossing read. Please read it before reading the next two books in the series. (Book three is due out soon and I can't wait to read it!) The main character becomes developed during the progression of the story and while we do not know everything about her we do come to care about her...and really want to know how her story concludes. The story of THE BANK evolves similarly...though we can not develop any sort of empathy for that institution.
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  • Jane Routley
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on 30 May 2015
    Verified Purchase
    An important and very readable book on a very important topic. A view of the workings of banks from the inside with plenty of human interest Go Nyla!
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