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  • If You Should Fail

  • A Book of Solace
  • By: Joe Moran
  • Narrated by: Ned Porteous
  • Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (13 ratings)

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If You Should Fail

By: Joe Moran
Narrated by: Ned Porteous
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Do you ever feel like a failure?

Enter widely acclaimed observer of daily life Professor Joe Moran, not to tell you that everything will be all right in the end, but to reassure you that failure is an occupational hazard of being human. It's the small print in life's terms and conditions.

Covering everything from examination dreams to fourth-placed Olympians, If You Should Fail is about how modern life, in a world of self-advertised success, makes us feel like failures, frauds and imposters. We need more narratives of failure and to see that not every failure can be made into a success - and that's OK.

As Moran shows, even the supremely gifted Leonardo da Vinci could be seen as a failure. Most artists, writers, sports stars and business people face failure. We all will and can learn how to live with it. To echo Virginia Woolf, beauty 'is only got by the failure to get it [...] by facing what must be humiliation - the things one can't do'.

Combining philosophy, psychology, history and literature, Moran's ultimately upbeat reflections on being human and his critique of how we live now offer comfort, hope - and solace.

©2020 Joe Moran (P)2020 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

"Joe Moran is the most perceptive and original observer of British life that we have." (Matthew Engel)

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This book makes me feel much better.

A wonderfully read book. I do enjoy the way Joe Moran thinks and I'm so pleased he takes the time to write his thoughts down for those keen to read them. We all need more solace in this ever more hectic and frightening world.

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