How To Fail

Elizabeth Day begins with a simple observation: everyone fails, so this book is for everyone. She believes failure has taught her things she could not have learned any other way. She has grown more from things going wrong than from times when everything seemed to be going well, and out of crisis has come clarity and sometimes even catharsis.

The book is part memoir and part manifesto. Its chapters cover dating, work, sport, babies, families, anger and friendship, and each rests on the idea that understanding why we fail makes us stronger. It is about learning from mistakes and losing the fear of them.

Day draws on stories from her own life to make the case that failure does not define us, and that what shapes us is how we respond to it. In her view, learning how to fail is a way of learning how to succeed better.