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Complete and Utter Failure: A Celebration of Also-rans, Runners-up, Never-weres and Total Flops - Hardcover
Synopsis
So you've got these fond hopes for blissful love, professional glory, fame, and fortune. But in the back of your mind there's that nagging fear. The man of your dreams will laugh in your face. Your hated office rival will come up with some whizbang marketing idea and get promoted, while you'll be asked to "help out with the phones." Steven Spielberg will buy the rights to your screenplay, spend $40 million producing it, and the critics will savage the film, mercilessly singling out your work for especially contemptuous, poisonous derision. But hey, everybody fails sometime. It's inevitable. So don't fear failure. Embrace it. In Complete And Utter Failure, Neil Steinberg joyfully explores the many fascinating facets of failure, from pointless failure (a brief history of several very dumb attempts to climb Mount Everest) to product failure (Reddi-Bacon, smokeless cigarettes, and Baby Jesus dolls) to institutionalized failure (the horrifying Dickensian spectacle of the National Spelling Bee, in which 8,999,999 children out of 9,000,000 fail in an excruciatingly public and humiliating fashion). This delightful book is filled with surprising and useless arcana--who really invented the telephone, what turned on Isaac Newton--guaranteed to help you annoy people at cocktail parties. Along the way Steinberg meditates on his own myriad miscues and disappointments, beginning with his failure to perform a magic trick in front of the neighborhood kids at age four (he blames Captain Kangaroo). Complete And Utter Failure is a wonderfully literate, witty book that issues a ringing message for our times: If at first you don't succeed, have a scotch and forget about it.
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- PublisherPavilion Books
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 1857936965
- ISBN 13 9781857936964
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages272
- Rating
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Complete and Utter Failure: A Celebration of Also-rans, Runners-up, Never-weres and Total Flops
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Hardcover. Condition: VG. Dust Jacket Condition: VG-. Not ex-lib; faded remainder mark lower page edges. Hardcover with blue paper over boards, in black and light blue ilustrated jacket, large 12moxi + 254pp. + bibliography/small 8vo. VG/VG- with sole reason for downgrade dampstain off upper and lower edges rear panel of jacket on inner side only, with associated dye transfer from blue boards, evident on boards as faded areas, not surface loss. No evidence of stain on exterior of jacket or within book. All else clean, tight, square and unmarked. Jacket in Brodart. Seller Inventory # 036444
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Complete and Utter Failure: A Celebration of Also-rans, Runners-up, Never-weres and Total Flops
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Hardcover with dust jacket. Pages are clean and unmarked. Slightly foxed. Covers show very minor shelf wear. Book is slightly shelf-cocked. Dust jacket is covered with protective mylar, shows light edge wear. Binding is tight, hinges strong.; 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! Ships same or next business day!. Seller Inventory # 142212200053
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COMPLETE & UTTER FAILURE 1995
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COMPLETE & UTTER FAILURE
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Otros. Condition: Nuevo. Dust Jacket Condition: Nuevo. LIBRO. Seller Inventory # 310834
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