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I was shocked and saddened by an item in our own newspaper last week. Right there on the list of Greater Des Moines’ top-selling business books, No. 10 with a smirk, was “Who Moved My Cheese?”

There is no way this book should still be hanging on to an audience several years after my mind-numbing encounter with it. It shouldn’t even be called a book; at best, it’s a fair example of paragraph indentation and a reminder to end sentences with periods.

It’s too late to go back and re-evaluate my copy now. I would have to go to all the trouble of diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench to look for it. The only other alternative would be to buy a new copy, and that’s not going to happen. So I’ll just have to stick with my memory of “Cheese” as the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.

If it were television, it would involve Jerry Springer or a judge. If it were art, it would be a stack of vacuum cleaners.

OK, maybe part of the problem is that I’m not familiar with the genre, this being the only motivational book I’ve ever plowed through. Why this one? Because a company I once worked for bought copies for everyone, gave me one to read, and I performed the task as assigned. (The phrase “model employee” has been bandied about, but that’s for others to decide.)

The book’s message is simple: Accept change.

Fine. Got it. What I have trouble accepting is a successful literary work that could easily have been a text message.

Of course, it would be hard to market a book consisting of one paragraph, and talking mice do make the saga more memorable. So the author spun out enough of a tale to fill dozens of wide-margined pages with nearly hundreds of words in large type, and it was a hit.

Based on my experience, I suspect sales are sustained by companies buying it in bulk for their drones. That’s understandable. We do live in an era of constant change, and things go a lot more smoothly if you can persuade the workers to keep their mouths shut.

If you risk the interactive route, you never know what might happen. Another one of my employers held meetings in which a young pup patiently explained to grizzled veterans that managers always make the right decision, so for heaven’s sake, don’t ever question them. All change is good; you just have to adapt.

He had us cross our arms differently than was our habit. See how odd it feels to make even a small change? he asked. See what it feels like to be poked repeatedly in the forehead with ink pens? is what we wanted to say, but didn’t.

Reporter Tom Suk, who undoubtedly heard lots of bizarre and troubling theories in 20 years of covering the night cops beat for the Des Moines Register, kept quiet as long as he could. But finally he offered an observation. “The Enola Gay changed Hiroshima,” Suk said, “but I don’t know if the people there thought it was a good thing.”

Of course, if thousands and thousands of people are reading “Who Moved My Cheese?” and nodding their heads in approval, maybe I’m missing something. I didn’t really get James Joyce, either, so there’s a pattern here.

Maybe the next time I go to a bookstore, I should zip right past the history section. After all, how many more ways are there to interpret the Battle of the Little Bighorn? General George Custer makes a tactical error – by showing up – and Sitting Bull easily covers the point spread. The end.

And the books on the current affairs shelves would be much more interesting if they were about, you know, affairs. Turns out they’re about politics and stuff like that.

So maybe I should give the self-improvement section a try.

I know what you’re thinking: Improve? Him? How could that even be possible? But the more I think about it …

Years ago, I interviewed the late business consultant and author Joe Batten about something that must have been along the lines of “how to raise children,” and made the mistake of saying that I didn’t read any parenting books, myself.

Shocked and saddened, Batten gave me a stern look and said, “I find your lack of intellectual curiosity lamentable.”

When people describe you with words like “lamentable,” a little self-improvement might be in order.