Review A Brief History of Failure

Bookangel, would you mind telling which book you liked that discussed real historical failures? I looked through some of the old reviews and couldn't find it. Amazon turns up a few "historical failure non-fiction" but nothing is jumping out to me.

 

This sounds like it could be an entertaining read if you wanted to reimagine historical events. However, I think I'd want to know more about actual historical events before I read the alternate version of them. Were they all pretty well-known events and/or people?


Ellie Jane, I think she's talking about The Book of Heroic Failures by Stephen Pile. That sounds like a great read to me.

 

Oh, there are several books in the series too. Most have good reviews on Amazon. Thanks a bunch Anna! These will keep me busy for quite a while.

 

Somehow I totally missed the fact that it's a series. I'll have to give them all a look! Which ones look most interesting to you?

 

I'm currently working my way through this one. Overall, it's funny and engaging. Sadly, I can see myself experiencing many of the same mishaps in the book. Especially the tales where the character gets hopelessly lost. It's light, easy reading, which was what I like after a stressful day. I'm glad you pointed it out to me.

 

That sounds like a great read! I'll have to give it a look myself. Ah, well, being able to relate to the mistakes adds to the humor. Plus, history is doomed to repeat itself and all.

 

The Book of Heroic Failures, and The Return of Heroic Failures were amazing reads, which I really enjoyed. The later books weren't all by the same author and were really cut-down versions of the insanity contained within the first two e.g. The army demolitions officer who moored his boat to the reef he was going to blow up.

The book above tried to be a satirical version of these titles, and in my opinion, it just didn't quite make it. Made up failures can't contend with the insanity that is real life, after all.