How to Fail
By Elizabeth Day
Published by Harpercollins
Available in hardback, ebook, audio
Forthcoming in paperback

And then in the middle of April, I read one of the books that will be in my top five by the end of 2019 or even be the best book of the year.

Elizabeth Day's How To Fail is a magnificent book, looking at failures and how they can make you stronger.

I discovered Elizabeth Day the other year when I read her article on embracing failure, which made me pick up and read her novel, The Party, and started to listen to her podcast series where she talks to people about their failures.

Failure is part of everybody's lives - sometimes we run from it, sometimes we let it consume us and stop us from taking risks. Failures can be small, some can be huge, some can be so personal that we don't want to talk about them. Elizabeth tackles failures by giving an insight into her life with honest accounts full of humour and sadness on failing at sports, relationships - marriage and divorce, pregnancy and family. The chapters on the desire to have a baby, and having a miscarriage are raw and brave, opening up to the reader, showing an area of womanhood that is not normally discussed. Elizabeth shows the reader that failures are not a dead-end - there is a possibility even if it feels like there's nowhere else to go.

I felt like her honesty and openness really spoke to me (I know, cliche alert) especially the chapters on divorce, relationships and career. As you can see from my photo, I read this via ebook but I feel like I'm going to need to buy this in physical form as I'm going to be referring to it a lot. At times I was nodding along, agreeing, tears in my eyes.

This is a mainly a memoir but How to Fail is also a self-help book in disguise. Elizabeth shows the reader that we shouldn't let failure limit or define our lives. This book is about standing up for what you desire, knowing that there will be failures but you're willing to accept the challenge. We need to acknowledge failures in our lives and use this to become a stronger person.

How to Fail is a tremendous book, and I really think everybody should read this as we've all faced some sort of failure in our lives. You can buy How to Fail from your favourite bookshop.

I was sent a copy via Netgalley.

This was the first book I've read from this author and I enjoyed it very much. It was very well written and the characters were well thought out.

I loved The Party and I found Elizabeth's writing in this non-fiction book just as compelling and enjoyable to read. The book was well structured and drew out really interesting life lessons from Day's experiences and other people she's interviewed for her podcast. It was funny, moving and insightful at different times.

The reason I couldn't quite move to 5 stars (I'd give it 4.5) is I did find the levels of privilege a bit hard to relate to. Of course, the experiences of heartbreak, grief and infertility are universal and Day writes about them well. She also acknowledges several times in the text that she has had many advantages in life. In some ways, I felt the overall aura of privilege was worsened by citing the experiences of her podcast interviewees because it emphasised they mostly came from similar backgrounds - it ended up feeling cosy sometimes...

Despite this, I would definitely recommend the book and Day's smart, sharp writing. I will look out for whatever she does next, either as a novelist or memoir writer.

Beautiful, heart wrenching and genuinely life changing! Elizabeth Day has a great way of weaving such a compassionate web of stories and I really connected with her.

You know that feeling when you discover a book and you think "oh my god this is my life?". Meet Elizabeth Day's amazing literally version of her cracking podcast (which has become my bible since the opening pages). Every single page in this wonderful creation is an insight not only into Elizabeth's life but into life in general.

The book is spilt into various chapters dealing with childhood, career, motherhood (more on that), relationships etc and is a brutally honest account of the writer's life thus far interspersed with quotes from her interviewees from the podcast.

The chapter that connected with me on a personal basis was the chapter about motherhood. If any of you know me and have read this then you will know what I am talking about. I did find myself nodding, tearing up and having to breathe deeply as emotions I thought long surpassed bubbled to the surface. Also the author's schooldays - yep been there!

It is not hard to see why this work has been so beloved by the book community at large and I have only one thing to say if you haven't read it - WHY?? Go and rectify this immediately!!!

Five stars!

Thank you 4th Estate, Elizabeth Day and NetGally for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm really not sure what I made of this book. On one level I applaud the concept yet its execution was not quite what I expected and, for me, fell a little flat.

I do not have the benefit of having listened to any of the podcasts which gave the idea for this book and, maybe, had I, I may have understood more?

Whilst I appreciated the open and honest discussion of some very personal material I found myself thinking that much of the rest of the book was an opportunity to name drop. This took away some of the power of the work. I felt that the message would have been so much more effective had the book been less generic and more specific. I'd love to hear more about the author's fertility issues and how she reconciled these "failures" - this would be a very powerful read (and one that resonates personally). Other "failures" seemed rather trite in comparison.

I'm glad I read the book but would be unlikely to read it again. Would I recommend? Possibly but with reservations.

With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

What a brilliant book! This is a witty and compassionate guide to failing. The author discusses her relationship with failure throughout her life, how it has changed (and almost comes full circle). Interspersed with interviews with celebrities about times they failed. For a book about failure it is brilliantly uplifting - Highly recommended!

We all do it. Yet it brings us so much shame. We try to pretend we don’t, or feel awful as a result. Yet it’s perfectly human. Failure that is.

Elizabeth Day realised the taboo around failure and set up her podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, in which she interviews people including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sebastian Faulks, Olivia Laing, David Nicholls, Dolly Alderton and Sathnam Sanghera. Even these talented and privileged people have failed at things, it seems, and she includes quotes from them in her new book of the same name.

The book goes through chapters on how to fail at relationships, or education, or fitting in. She tells tales of divorce, and being fired. She talks about school, work, and social difficulties. She takes in the whole of life, because at times we all fail.

But the flipside is that we all succeed. By overcoming life’s difficulties, we find ourselves growing. It’s a nice read (even as its frustrating that everything is framed as a failure in some way) and inspiring in its approach.

‘What does it mean to fail? I think all it means is that we’re living life to its fullest.’ she says. A full life is one we can all aspire to.

Liked the concept of this book and the chapters discussing fertility/not raising children were v powerful but it really suffered from using a v narrow pool of v privileged people as its case-studies/reference points.

This book was incredible and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know. The chapter on fertility is so moving. It's all so moving. I just loved it.

How to Fail draws together various interviews and opinions from the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast series.

The book is split into short essay segments such as ‘How to Fail at Dating’ or ‘How to Fail at Work’, neatly drawing together snippets from different interviews around individual themes. All of the interviews feature people who have achieved career success, such as celebrities, authors, actors, talking about times in their life where they feel they failed and what those failures taught them.

The initial chapters of the book have a warm, anecdotal tone, but as she warms up Day gradually slides into a more academic style, presenting coherent and well-constructed arguments on topical issues such as the #MeToo phenomenon and modern gender politics. This gives the book a mixed tone: part memoir, part thesis, which I found worked really well with the subject matter.

My only criticism here would be that the concept of the book and the podcasts is a simple one: finding the positive in failure; what can it teach us; which different path can it lead us down; how can we grow and improve from it. This works really well in podcast format as you get the personal experiences and anecdotes, insights and emotions directly ‘from the horse’s mouth’. In a book, I found that it began to feel a little bit repetitious, as this concept was applied in turn to each separate aspect of the author and interviewees lives.

Still, the content and tone of the book were engaging enough to carry me through and I came out of the book thoroughly convinced of the principle and eager to apply it to my own outlook on life. So for me, this book on failure would definitely be classed a success!



This is a book for anyone who has ever failed. Which means it’s a book for everyone. I don’t have all the answers (and it’s entirely possible I have none of them) but if you turn the final page having in some small way recognised yourself and felt less alone, then that makes me happy. That means this book about failure is not, in itself, a failure.
Does that mean I’ve failed to write it properly.
I hope not.

– Elizabeth Day, How To Fail

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

Although I have heard of Elizabeth Day's podcast series, I have not actually listened to any of the episodes so I came to this book without any preconceived ideas. I found that Day manages to balance funny recollections alongside poignant memories. I do believe our failures make us better people (eventually!) and I enjoyed Day's honesty in how her struggles have shaped the woman she is today.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was all prepared to really enjoy this book and it saddens me to say that I didn’t.

I have been a listener to the How to Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast since the very beginning and always enjoy it. There has been a commendable mix of guests and the podcast format lends itself well to guests revealing more than they would in a print interview or one on TV.

I assumed that the book would use the podcasts, maybe including outtakes that didn’t make it, pulling out the interviews’ commonalities and giving an overview of how to fail successfully.

It does do this, but only to a very limited extent. Instead it is very heavy on Day’s own experiences. I don’t wish to be mean but I am not that interested in her as a person. So I effectively found myself ploughing through an autobiography that I would not chosen to have read.

Also, although the podcast has had about 30 episodes to date (although it would have been fewer than this when the book was being written) the number of interviews that she chooses to quote from is very limited. I could do with less from Dolly Alderton and Phoebe Waller-Bridge and their middle-class first-world problems.

I will certainly continue listening to the podcast, but I feel this book was a missed opportunity and I don’t enjoy writing that. Sorry.

Thanks to 4th Estate and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was of particular interest to me as I work with young people and see the struggle they have with failure and personal resilience. I am not familiar with Day's podcast but will make an effort to check it out after reading this.

I wouldn't categorise this book as a self help book as others have done. To me it's more of a memoir interspersed with Day's reflections on failure as experienced both by herself and the celebrities she has interviewed on the podcast and in her experience as a journalist. I liked how the celebrity examples were used to exemplify her message and it was surprising to know more about the failures some had experienced in their lives.

The book is separated into various different topics including ruminations on sport, babies, relationships, careers, success etc. I think probably any woman of a similar generation to the author (me included) will identify with some of the events and feelings that the author has experienced. The book is at turns funny and poignant and the way it's structured makes it easy to dip in and out of or indeed avoid any topics that may be too raw.

This is a thought provoking book and if nothing else it can be reassuring to read that in reality we all struggle with the same kinds of things. The author clearly comes from a very privileged background and it may have been interesting to get more of a variety of perspectives but overall, a useful and affirming read for anyone, not just those struggling with personal resilience.

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Day's How to Fail podcast so I was really excited when I heard she was writing a book to go alongside it. Society focuses heavily on success and social media encourages people to show only the positive moments of their lives. The How to Fail podcast and book are really refreshing in that it focuses on people's failures and what can be learned from them.

The book is part memoir and also features snippets from interviews with celebrities from the podcast. It features individual chapters on areas such as relationships, children, career, sport and babies. It's very honest and heart wrenching at times. As someone going through significant change in their life (including something significant some people would class as a 'failure') this was a very timely read.

I recommend this to anyone who needs a reminder that most people (if not all) fail at some point, and it's what you learn from it that counts.

A chapter or two into this book I wasn’t sure it was for me. I wondered if it was aimed at people at an earlier life stage than me. By the end I was marking up paragraphs all over the place and really reflecting on the things that I’ve failed at in life and how those failures have helped me. This is a book that draws both on Day’s experiences and those of the guests on her podcast (which I also recommend). It’s a series of essays about trying and failing in different areas of life, and how this can lead ultimately to success. I found the chapter on failing to have a baby particularly thought provoking in terms of how society treats women who don’t become a mother. In all, a book that made me ponder and one I’d recommend. Many thanks to NetGalley and 4th Estate for the review copy.

"The older I get, the more I realise that success only feels good when it is congruent with who you are. That is why the success of the 'How to Fail With Elizabeth Day' podcast was such a pleasant surprise... I genuinely didn't mind if only five people listened to it. As long as those listeners got something from it, I was happy."

Part memoir, part recapping of conversations with guests on her How To Fail podcast, Day's book of the same name is about how valuable failure can be and how to learn from it. Split into twelve chapter, each examine areas in life where you might experience failure including Fitting In, Dating, Babies, Work, Friendships and Families. In the Babies chapter Day writes with great depth and fortitude about IVF and miscarriage and in Families, the impact she believes they have on a person's outlook (which isn't necessarily fixed but it is helpful to be aware of). I was drawn to the concept that something ending isn't necessarily a failure because it was successful for a time and perhaps it can't remain forever.

Engaging and informative I related to many of the anecdotes and perceptive narratives Day imparts. Even those I don't have direct experience of were interesting and told in an appealing way, expanding upon how to interpret and make use of failure. Funny and insightful, sad and eloquent, there is something for everyone who has experienced failure at any point in their lives in (that'll be all of us then!) in this brilliant manifesto.

It was a real privilege to be able to read How to Fail by Elizabeth Day ahead of publication. I really immersed myself in these essays, and in my free time when I wasn't reading it I was listening to the podcast that was the inspiration for the book. Fans of the podcast will enjoy revisiting early episodes, but will also gain insight into Elizabeth Day's own life and, even more interestingly, how she has weaved different people's stories of success and failure, as well as her own, into an incredible manifesto. This book was a comfort and a joy, and deftly managed the range of emotions that come with failure. The chapters are split into types of failure and what we can learn from them ranging from Day's
entertaining failure to "be Gwyneth Palthrow" to her heartbreaking account of infertility. I cannot recommend these essays highly enough.

I am a huge fan of Elizabeth Day's podcast, How to Fail. The book follows the same premise as the podcast - that we learn far more from failure than we do from success, and that it's important, more so than ever in today's filtered highlight reel social media world, to be honest about the lows in life as well as the highs. If you've ever looked at a successful person and thought "wow, they've just got it all, I'm sure they've never screwed anything up" and then around at your own life, with all its messy moments and missed chances, and wonder where you keep going wrong.... the answer is, you aren't. Everyone feels that way at some point. Even the most outwardly successful people.

The podcast has moved me to tears on the odd occasion - but the episode I've listened to several times over is when Elizabeth Day is interviewed herself (by Dolly Alderton). So the book expands on many of the things she touched on in that episode - divorce, infertility, relationships, regrets - alongside anecdotes from her podcast guests. It's all enlightening, vulnerable, well-written, painfully honest but also resilient, positive and hopeful. I related to so many of her "failures".

The aspect of the book I most enjoyed is the great intimacy Day achieves with the reader. Imagine an older, wiser friend or sister. It's like you're sitting across from her in a bar, both of you with a stiff drink in hand and she looks you straight in the eyes and says "right. This is everything I've learned from things that have gone wrong."

How to Fail is one of those books I think has universal appeal - for everyone has 'failed' at some point in their lives. But, as Day and her guests attest, it's these dark times where you are tested that you find out what you're truly made of. They also make you appreciate the successes and good things in life all the more.

You'll feel every low in this book but ultimately finish reading it on a high.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Elizabeth Day is a good writer and I found the novel engaging, and I liked the she weaved stories about herself in with stories about people who were on her How To Fail podcast (which I had heard of but not listened to). Her advice is always sensible and measured, however, I felt that overall, while Day acknowledges her privilege, the novel was unable to see beyond it. All of the anecdotes are from cis, white, middle-class people who seem to harbour deep anxieties while still being staggeringly successful by all objective measures. While those anxieties are of course valid, I would have preferred an acknowledgement that hard work and determination won't necessarily enable people to leapfrog existing societal barriers (such as poverty, racial discrimination or disability).