How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong

*** Elizabeth Day’s new novel, One of Us, is available to pre-order now from Amazon. Out 25th September 2025. ***

Inspired by her hugely popular podcast, How To Fail is Elizabeth Day’s brilliantly funny, painfully honest and insightful celebration of things going wrong.

This is a book for anyone who has ever failed. Which means it’s a book for everyone.

If I have learned one thing from this shockingly beautiful venture called life, it is this: failure has taught me lessons I would never otherwise have understood. I have evolved more as a result of things going wrong than when everything seemed to be going right. Out of crisis has come clarity, and sometimes even catharsis.

Part memoir, part manifesto, and including chapters on dating, work, sport, babies, families, anger and friendship, it is based on the simple premise that understanding why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. It's a book about learning from our mistakes and about not being afraid.

Uplifting, inspiring and rich in stories from Elizabeth’s own life, How to Fail reveals that failure is not what defines us; rather it is how we respond to it that shapes us as individuals.

Because learning how to fail is actually learning how to succeed better. And everyone needs a bit of that.

This audiobook includes an extra chapter, exclusively available in the audiobook, called ‘Everything I’ve Learned About Failure’.

© 2019 Fourth Estate (Audiobook): 9780008327361

Release date

Audiobook: 25 March 2019