Some readers will recall the flotation of DK in 1992 - a moment of cheer in a bear market. Its sales were £87m. Eight years later, they touched £200m, but the end was nigh. The book describes all aspects of DK's growth convincingly but the golden thread is Peter Kindersley's role as executive chairman. He despatched several senior colleagues over the years, including in late 1999 the book's author, who had been with him from the start and was director of publishing and deputy chairman. This was apparently at the behest of a new chief executive, who was the first person in the company to whom Kindersley deferred. This Svengali character's first decision was to overrule DK's top 20 managers who wanted to print 5m copies of a Star Wars film tie-in series. Instead, 18m were printed. Most of these ended up in landfill and a few months later, Dorling Kindersley collapsed into the hands of Pearson which made half the staff redundant. (Despite the calamity, Pearson paid a full price: £300m).
The book is a gripping read, as you try to spot episodes which foretell the conclusion. Davis thinks he saw this by 1995, when Kindersley acknowledged the cheers of an adulatory sales conference with a "not entirely self-deprecating smile". But for me, in Davis' telling, it was there from the beginning. When genius takes the form of remorselessly pushing the envelope, falling right out of it is always on the cards.