The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures

An intrepid selection from the original volumes

Stephen Pile

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571277346
• Year: 2012

Last year Stephen Pile attempted to deliver a daring blow to the success ethic that so pervades Western culture. To his dismay, The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures sold many copies and even became the Sunday Times 'Humour Book of the Year.'

Nothing daunted, Stephen returns with a new selection which brings together the very best of his original classic titles - The Book of Heroic Failures and The Return of Heroic Failures.

The heartwarming news that stays news is that there really is no limit to what humanity can achieve, as we move onwards and downwards to ever more immortal and breathtaking feats of incompetence. The Not Terribly Good Book of Heroic Failures lovingly chronicles the all-time heroes who have been so bad at things that they shine as beacons for future generations.

It is hard not to feel boundless admiration, for example, for the fifty Mexican convicts who dug an escape tunnel out of their jail and came up in the courtroom where many of them had been sentenced. Or for the world's worst tourist, who spent three days in New York believing he was in Rome.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraph
• INTRODUCTION
• 1: NEW WORLD RECORDS
• 2: DOING IT AT WORK
• 3: MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR FREE TIME
• 4: THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUALISM
• 5: THE BUSINESS OF POLITICS
• 6: WAR AND PEACE
• 7: PLAYING THE GAME
• 8: THE CULTURAL EXPLOSION
• 9: THE GLORY OF THE STAGE
• 10: MEDIA STUDIES
• 11: LAW AND ORDER
• 12: LOVE AND MARRIAGE
• 13: THE BRITISH WAY OF DOING THINGS
• 14: ENCOURAGING NEWS FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• 15: 1980: A VINTAGE YEAR
• 16: THE SPIRIT OF THE OLYMPICS
• 17: STORIES I FAILED TO PIN DOWN
• 18: THE ART OF BEING WRONG
• EPILOGUE
• About the Author
• By the Same Author
• Copyright