As a fan of her podcast, this is everything you come to love about Elizabeth Day's attitude and approach to taking it on the chin!
This book will help you see the bigger picture in those less than award-winning moments, help you turn those experiences into useful, learning moments all whist making you laugh!
A great reminder for yourself or the worrier in your life.

Pithy, direct and very readable, this is a great book to get you back on track in these strange times. Don't give up on yourself, just think clearly and learn lessons. Excellent.

Elizabeth Day hosts a podcast called "How to Fail" where she invites guests to discuss 3 times in their life that they have failed.

This book summarises everything she has learnt over 7 seasons of the podcast, along with her own experiences. Quotes taken from the podcast are dotted throughout the book and all the information is summarised into 7 key principles of failure.

This is a short, quick read, but it is the sort of book that you can continue to dip into as and when you need it. None of the information in it is groundbreaking, but reading it helps to remind you that failure is unavoidable, and helps to change your mindset on your own failures so that they don't seem so catastrophically awful. It also shows how you can turn failure into success. Generally, we learn a lot from failure and it can lead to better things in the long run!

If you enjoy the podcast, you'll enjoy this book. If you're not a podcast kind of person, this is a great summary of everything that's been discussed on the podcast over the years!

"The great possibility of the future lies in one simple fact: it hasn't happened to us yet."

Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong packs a powerful punch despite only being a mere 160 pages in length. Elizabeth Day's ability to effectively change a persons mindset ever so slightly from a pessimistic view of failures to an optimistic one is exactly what sets her apart from the rest. Her revolutionary and accessible, conversational style makes it easy for anyone to begin to view both past and future failures as opportunities to learn from your mistakes rather than anything more negative. It seems deceptively simple but it's these changes to our thought processes and behaviours that impact us the most. Incremental change has the power to revitalise and invigorate your life as it did mine. If you feel you need a new outlook, and I think we all perhaps could do with a little help in that department right now, then this is a crucial part of my repertoire and should be a part of yours too. It is an indispensable book I know I will return to again and again. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Fourth Estate for an ARC.

I confess I have somewhat of a crush on Elizabeth Day; she’s one of my favourite podcasters, thinkers and writers. I went to see her at the Birmingham Literature Festival last year and she was everything I hoped she would be: intriguing, sensitive, funny and just so ... normal?! So for the reasons above you can probably guess this is going to be a glowing review of her new offering; ‘Failosophy’.

As an avid listener of the podcast and having read ‘How to Fail’ I did wonder what this new book could offer, surely I’d heard it all already? Well I was wrong. Day outlines the seven principles of failure she has curated through her podcast interviews and personal experiences and communicates them in such a digestible way. She draws upon anecdotes and experiences from her podcast interviewees and researchers and current thinkers from a number of disciplines. It’s a really practical guide to coping with ‘failure’.

Day has bravely shared experiences of infertility and miscarriage before but her chapter in this book about her most recent miscarriage and subsequent heartbreak is so honest and utterly heartbreaking. She is able to convey so openly and sensitively the emotion of how she coped and I know many readers will draw strength from her words. I know I will go back to this section again.

The inclusion of podcast guest failures at the end was fascinating. I loved reading how they had introduced them - some so sparse and pragmatic, others with so much thought and detail. A great ending to the book.

I think I enjoyed it more than ‘How To Fail’.

(INSTAGRAM: @minireadsmummyreads)

I really like Elizabeth Day. I enjoy her writing - both fiction and non-fiction and I enjoy listening to her podcast. When I was given the opportunity to read How to Fail I jumped at the chance. The same goes for Failosophy. When you get so much from a writer you gorge yourself on all of their works and fortunately for me I have yet to be disappointed.

Failosophy is an extension of both he book and the podcast How to Fail. Whereas the book How to Fail was about Elizabeth Day’s journey and the podcast invites us to listen to a plethora or diverse and interesting people and their journey what you get from Failosophy is guidance for your own journey. I’ve said journey far too much and now I feel like I am in a montage at the beginning of The X Factor.

This pocket-sized guide is great to dip in and out of and helps to remind you that not all failures are failures. It really is a joyful things to read

Failosophy - A Handbook for When Things Go Wrong by Elizabeth Day is available now.

For more information regarding Elizabeth Day (@elizabday) please visit www.elizabethdayonline.co.uk.

For more information regarding 4th Estate (@4thEstateBooks) please visit www.4thestate.co.uk.

This is a short self help booklist will change your mind about how you feel when you fail at something. I have never heard of Elizabeth Dqy or her podcast before but she mentions it in the book. There's references to failures and how to overcome them. There is seven principles of failing and they cwn be applied to different situations.

I really enjoyed this quick read. There is just over one hundred pages. I found it intriguing with humor and sadness thrown into the mix.

I would like to thank #NetGalley, #4thEstate and the author #ElizabethDay for my ARC in exchange for an honest review

Disclaimer - I don't like self-help books and never read them. But Elizabeth Day's approach is so different that I made an exception, both for 'How to Fail' and for her follow-up 'Failosophy'.

In Failosophy Elizabeth Day brings together all the lessons she has learned, from conversations with the guests on her award-winning How to Fail podcast, from stories shared with her by readers and listeners, and from her own life, and distils them into seven principles of failure.

She warns us against the expectation of perfection, reinforced by social media. And she shows us that failure isn't necessarily a negative. Either it provides a positive outcome at a later date, it can be reframed as positive or it gives us 'data' for lessons learnt.

What I like most about Day's writing is how reassuringly practical and humane she is. She isn't didactic or hectoring; she doesn't hold herself up as a shining example that the rest of us can only aspire too. She is human, warm and insightful, without being a 'Pollyanna'. Day acknowledges that failure can give us pain and encourages us to remember that not all failures are equal; some will trigger grief - and that's okay. What is important is not to react to every failure the same way.

A lot of the wisdom Day shares in Failosophy. comes with age; I wish I had read this book in my 20s, or even by teens.

A nice and enjoyable read, but I think I as hoping for a lot more from this. It’s got some touching stories and good points but I think I was hoping for more practical help.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Well, this was an absolute delight. I really enjoyed the first How to Fail book and love that it has been followed up with a practical guide on how to find the positives in failing. The book outlines seven failure principles which is practical advice and guidelines including understanding how failure is a natural part of life and that it doesn't define you as a person. It's a pretty short book, I read it within a couple of hours, but there are lessons learned and I am going to buy a physical copy of the book for myself so that I can pick it up and refer to it when I need it. I appreciate the absolute honest and vulnerability shown by Day and her guests, and I truly believe it's helping make the world a better and kinder place!

What do Malcolm Gladwell, Alain de Botton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lemn Sissay, Nigel Slater, Emeli Sandé, Meera Syal, Dame Kelly Holmes and Andrew Scott have in common? They've all failed and - more importantly - they've been willing to appear on Elizabeth Day's podcast to discuss their failures and how life worked out for them afterwards. You'll find the results of these discussions in Failosophy

It struck me that in the current climate, what we really need is a handbook for when things go wrong. When the world is going to hell in a handcart we need to know how to cope - and the perfect book dropped into my lap. Failosophy teaches us to embrace failure, to learn from it and then to move on: learning how we fail actually means learning how to succeed better. Forget the way that we've been brainwashed into thinking that we will succeed if only we are clever enough or thin enough or tanned enough or famous enough or charitable enough or sociable enough or, in some way good enough. Embrace being yourself.

Forget too, the idea that happiness can be a constant state. It's the exception, a transient state. Aim instead for contentment, a steadier, more stable state. Learn from your past and apply the lessons to your future.

Elizabeth Day has reduced what she has learned from failures into seven concise lessons: she expects that there will be more as time goes on. The first is that failure is inevitable: you cannot avoid it in exactly the same way that you cannot avoid oxygen or shoelaces or teabags. The second lesson is that you are not your worst thoughts: don't confuse who you are with what you do: I took the most away from this lesson, having been brought up to believe that I was defined by my (numerous and ever-expanding) failures.

Almost everyone feels that they've failed at their twenties. It's the decade when we spread our wings, take risks and fail, when we experience breakups. John Crace, Guardian columnist lost most of his twenties to heroin addiction: the trick is to learn from what happens which leads us on to our next lesson. Failure is data acquisition. Provided that we consider what has happened, we can learn from our failures and do things differently in future.

We should see failure not as something that defines us, but as a missing piece of knowledge that helps us come closer to completing the jigsaw of who we truly are. Finally, you need to accept that there is no such thing as a future you. You can plan for where you hope to be but you'll need to accept that life will, almost inevitably, work out differently and that being open about our vulnerabilities is the source of true strength.

It's a quick and light read - I finished it in one sitting with lots of pages noted to go back and think about more carefully. For most people, it will be an entirely new approach to life but is the old way serving us any better?

I'd like to thank the publishers for making a review copy available to Bookbag.

Usually these sort of books aren't hugely my bag but it also feels like this one popped up at the right time personally to change that. A handbook of sorts for when things go wrong, and the variety of things we consider as personal failures, and how to redress that perception in seven principles, peppered with personal stories and advice from guests on the podcast. Maybe not groundbreaking, but there were some stories that have sat with me since I read and I think will stay with me a long time. Recommend!

I am a HUGE fan of the podcast and I deeply admire Elizabeth Day so needless to say, I was really looking forward to this book.

And probably, because of my gigantic expectations, I was kind of disappointed. It was a nice read, but it felt a bit flat. I enjoyed remembering older episodes of the podcasts, and thinking about the deeply poignant memories the guests kindly shared but in some way the book lacked the emotional and deeply resonating bits that the conversations have.

It is nice to have a framework to reframe our thinking of failure, but I feel that only considering the guests’ and Day’s experiences is not enough. I was hoping for some theoretical constructs or theories to provide more depth.

I will probably add one star in the future, if the 7 principles prove useful!
My opinion on the book and the content of the book itself could

A quick interesting and funny read. An intriguing way of thinking about failure.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

"So, yes, I have spent a large portion of the last couple of years thinking incessantly about failure, and the weird thing is that it hasn't been a negative experience. On the contrary, I feel stronger, happier and more empowered as a result. I'm no longer embarrassed by my mistakes because when I look back at the biggest moments of crisis in my life, I now feel proud of my resilience in surviving them. They have made me who I am, but they do not define me."

Building upon her podcast and book, How To Fail, the author has pulled together all she has learnt into a life philosophy, or failosophy. After defining failure, Day advocates Seven Failure Principles, "a mindset that can be applied to multiple areas of life":

1. Failure is a fact of life.
2. You are not your worst thoughts.
3. Everyone feels they failed at their twenties.
4. Break-ups are not a tragedy.
5. Failure is data acquisition (I am already an advocate of this).
6. There is no such thing as a future you.
7. Being open about our vulnerabilities is the source of true strength.

Supported by quotes from well known people and her own experiences of failure, Day makes the case that failure is not only inevitable, but learnt from, it is productive and can help you become more resilient and happy. This very much speaks to me, because whilst I've experienced failure and really felt it at the time, later on, over time I can usually be more philosophical about it and focus on what it's taught me. After all, it's not only good experiences you learn from, in fact that bad ones, those where you make mistakes, can be more memorable and arguably more useful and resilience is important. This is a readable and empowering manifesto for how to turn failure to your advantage.

"Failure continuously teaches us who we are. It is nothing to be scared of. Failure has been the making of me. It might just be the making of you too."

This was a nice quick read and a brilliant approach to failure, heartwarming and funny and kind.
would definitely recommend.

I enjoyed the first Elizabeth Day book so was really keen to read this one. I haven't listened to the podcast yet but its on my list! This book is sort of like a self help book/general advice on what is classed as failure in life and how to adjust your attitude towards it. It's a quick read and very informative and enjoyable. The book also features celebrities listing what they view as their own failures.

Short, sweet and loving. This is a wonderful follow-up to How to Fail and brilliant companion to the podcast. I absolutely adore Elizabeth Day’s writing style. A perfect gift. Reassuring and warm. A manual that comforts how normal it is to make mistakes. Couldn’t recommend this enough.

This is a short book which distills seven key lessons from Elizabeth Day's excellent podcast. Very helpful for reframing how we think about failure and not letting it kill our confidence completely.

Elizabeth Day's 'How to Fail' is one of my favourite podcasts. It is often very moving and Day is a thoughtful interviewer who is not afraid to be as open and vulnerable as her guests. I think she has done a great deal to reframe my ideas about failure, and therefore I was intrigued and interested to read this accompanying book.

There is some good sense in here, distilled from her podcast work, but it is slight, and anecdotal. I believe this book needed a wider scope - perhaps including some cultural or historical framework on failure - to make it a more substantial read. Also, whilst Day writes really movingly about her own experiences she can be a bit gushing about others, such as quoting supportive messages from her friends verbatim, which I find slightly off-putting.

The second part of the book is a summary of some of her podcast guests and their lists of failures. Again, for a regular listener to the podcast, this is very light and doesn't capture the intensity of feeling that comes from the podcasts. For example, I can remember being in tears listening to Lisa Taddeo talking about her experience of loss, but that emotional impact is lost here. Perhaps as a format to introduce new listeners to the podcast, it may work better. I am giving three stars because I really like the author and I admire what she has achieved, but I think more could have been done with this book.