The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures

Heroic Failures

by Stephen Pile

All successful people are the same (you know, drive, will to win, determination) – it’s just too dull to contemplate. But everyone who messes up big time does so in a way that is completely individual.

Step forward the fifty Mexican convicts who dug an escape tunnel out of their jail and came up in the courtroom before the judge who sentenced them.

Please welcome the world’s worst tourist who spent two days in New York believing he was in Rome.

Be thrilled by the man who wrote an English-Portuguese phrasebook without either knowing English or owning an English-Portuguese dictionary.

And marvel at the least successful kamikaze pilot who returned from eleven suicide missions, lived to the age of 93 and went on to write an autobiography in which he claimed planes were unsafe.

The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures shows that there really is no limit to what humanity can achieve, celebrating the vast, life-enhancing possibilities of getting it wrong.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little book. A good thing to have in the bathroom or elsewhere that one might pick up and read for a few minutes then put down, just as the introduction suggests. Most of all, though, I enjoyed the author's remarks at the end concerning his reasons for writing the book and his commentary on the need for us to accept and embrace failure and wrongness. I like his statement that all successes are the same, but every failure is unique.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some lovely stuff!
Something you can read straight through, and/or dip into as you like

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reliable laugh. Lovely to see the worst ever poem gets a mention...

[Stanley Goldyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume, the author's fourth in a series on the subject, is a recycled compilation of facts revealing myriad instances of human error, failure, bad judgement and/or bad luck.

It is best read in small doses, perhaps in tandem with another book.

The anecdotes are mildly interesting, some tragically comic, others verging on individual stupidity.
Not necessarily for everyone.

[David Provan]

Un-Heroic

Text is fine. But what idiot could even think of publishing it without Bill Tidy's absolutely perfect illustrations? Shame on you, Mr Pile.

[Rhett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope, nope and nope.

[MSL · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book to dip in and out of and leave on your coffee table to entertain guests; very funny and doesn't take itself too seriously.

[Wyktor Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title says it all, apart from the "Not Terribly Good" part.
I found it extremely entertaining and really funny in places, Kiwis even got mentioned a few times as well.
Highly recommended.

[Ida · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't read as intendend so felt dry information overload. Stories could be more expanded for better telling.

[AZGD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories are laugh out loud, others are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯