The Book of Heroic Failures
By Stephen Pile
The Book of Heroic Failures, was written by Stephen Pile and first published in 1979. This book is essentially a collection of hilarious, ironic and unusual people and events. This sole theme is that of ironic failure, each story being anywhere from a few sentences to several paragraphs. The book itself is split into eleven different sections so that the reader may dip in and out of the book at will, which is a very helpful format considering the layout of the stories. My favourite sections include the glory of the stage, stories we failed to pin down and the art of being wrong. From the poet whose footnotes were longer than his poems, to a bill ruling that the value of pi was four, there is no shortage of entertaining stories within this books pages. To those who wish to read only the best of these stories I would advise that you read some of the longer ones as more tends to go wrong, causing a domino effect of mild humour. The humour in this book is relatively subtle and therefore won't be suited to everyone, for this very reason I imagine it would also be quite uninteresting to anyone under the age of ten.
Overall this book was thoroughly enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys comedy or needs a new perspective on what qualifies as 'success'.
Popular Posts
Short Stories: WHERE IS DANIEL?
The time was an early morning in the winter of 1941. Falling snow packed onto the hard labourers of Gulag 10 WLA as they begin setting off into the mines and factories somewhere in the far east. Malnourished, mistreated and muddy, the inhabitors of this typical Gulag were kept under strict control of General Victor, who gave harsh punishments to any prisoner who dared riot or worse, insult the government. It was a normal evening. The prisoners were escorted back to the Gulag through the freezing taiga by cattle carriages. They waited in line for their daily rations: Rubbery potatoes, dried bread and lime water. If one behaved well and boasted high production, he/she would sometimes be rewarded with a small knob of fresh corn, a snack the guards would gladly feast on. General Victor was feasting on a large chicken when Archie, or formally, Guard Number One burst into his room reporting misbehaviour between two prisoners. Ben (Guard Number Two) and Mile...
Book Review - I Am Malala
This book - I Am Malala - is about Malala Yousafzai, who fought for the right of girl's education, when the Taliban took over Pakistan, Malala's home country. It was an autobiography novel, written by Malala herself with help from Patricia Mccormick and was written for teens. Malala was an ordinary girl living in Pakistan with her family and friends and thoroughly enjoyed school, which she did very well at. However, in Pakistan, women were restricted in what they could do and be seen doing and these worsened when the Taliban came when Malala was 10 years old. Even at this age, Malala did not like that women were treated so horribly. So she spoke out, but the Taliban did not like this. They took action and shot Malala on her school bus, she never got to and probably never will get to make that journey back home. The bullet was shot into Malala's head and narrowly avoided her brain, it took Malala several surgeries, physical therapy sessions and a flight halfway across the...
Book Review - Brotherband:The Caldera by John Flanagan
Brotherband: The Caldera by John Flanagan fictional adventure book. This book has many viking like features and is a companion series of Rangers Apprentice. It is the 7th book in the series; Brotherband. The brotherband is a group of young vikings. The brotherband consists of Hal, the skirl of the Heron (the boat he captains, Stig, the first mate, Ulf and Wulf, the identical twins, Edvin, an average person but he is the cook and healer of the group, Ingvar the big muscular person, Jesper the former thief, Stefan, the joker of the group but can mimic sounds, Thorn the battle trainer and elder of the group as he is more experienced and older, Lydia, the only female in the group and uses an atlatl, and then there's Kloof, Hal's dog. In this book Stig's dad comes back after leaving 15 years ago. His dad, Olaf, needs a crew and ship as he was blamed for the Byzantos empress's son was abducted by some pirates. The crew accept the mission. They go island to island ...
Comments
Post a Comment