Stephen Pile

The series of books by Stephen Pile listing the great heroic failures of our time is surely one of western civilisation’s greatest moments. Here is a couple of hundred pages packed with tales of people comprehensively failing at whatever they have set out to achieve. It’s the type of book you can open at any page, read an entry, piss yourself laughing, and amid growing concern for your wellbeing by those in the vicinity, get on with your life. Examples include “The Least Accurate show more Map” (which had ramblers mistakenly hiking through a hospital ward) and “The Least Successful Fun Festival” (amongst other problems, the booked Elvis impersonator, some chap named Rupert, failed to turn up).

No matter how many times you read this you will get a laugh. show less

Well, bugger me sideways Tuesday this was hilarious.

The first book in this series "The Book of Heroic Failures" is hilarious, the follow-up, "The Return of Heroic Failures", is hilarious, and this, the third in the series, is hilarious.

Basically, "The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures" covers, like its predeccesors, tales of extremely poor attempts at a task, be it parking, bank robbery or concert review, or references to the most boring hobby (collecting brown wrapping paper). Stephen Pile, show more who also compiled the two previous contributions, has an engaging writing style and an eye for the ludicrous and I was left chortling merrily by reading any random section of the book. Picking a favourite entry is impossible due to the sheer number of tales of heroic failures mentioned within, so opening the book to a random page finds the tale of some would-be bank robbers who rang the bank ahead of time to say they would be arriving shortly and could they have money ready for them. Not suprisingly, the police were also at the bank (the story is a lot funnier when I'm not telling it).

Hugely recommended. show less

"The book of heroic failures" is, quite simply, one of the funniest books I have ever read. If you're like me and enjoy reading about the complete bugger-ups of other people (and I think you are) you'll piss yourself laughing throughout "The Book of Heroic Failures".

I've always been a fan of spectacular failures so I really enjoyed the many spectacular tales of failures and flops. Who could forget the infamous 1912 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race where neither boat was able to finish (and one show more rower wandered off at a critical moment to chat to his old chum Boswell)? Or the amateur soccer team from England that accidentally found itself playing against a professional German team (the German fans ended up cheering the English team whenever they went near the ball)?

Over two hundred pages of heroic failures, and almost everyone a gem. show less

One of the funniest books I've ever read. The combination of the ridiculous stories with Pile's writing style sends me into stitches every time I reread the book. I'm so glad I found it tucked in a corner of an obscure used-book store, since the book was — appropriately enough — a failure in the U.S., though it did well enough in the U.K. to inspire an equally funny sequel.