After a career as an ad executive, James Othmer recently published his third book, a comic novel titled Holy Water (a review).

In it, he skewers the worlds of globalization, marketing and more, drawing many insights from the discrepancies between how things seem and how they all-too-often really are.

With James, let's discuss:

• What inspired this novel?
• Is any company really "marketing with meaning" yet? How does that work?
• How is life in the book industry, compared to the ad world? (Watch his awesome Adland video.)

Oh, and my apologies if you hoped this call would be about Catholic sacraments and such....