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Failure: An Autobiography

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This is a very brave work, one that without meaning to speaks for many baby-boomers with privilege, liberal-arts educations, and emotionally distant parents (especially fathers) as companions in their life's journey. Failure is something we don't want to talk about in America, and Gidding lays out his own personal failures - as a husband, son, academic, etc. - as he sees them, with the utmost honesty and an excruciatingly analytical intelligence. In trying to free himself of the burden of his expectations (inherited, self-imposed, and learned) he points the way towards a graceful world of acceptance and forbearance, starting with his own view of himself. There are times when you want to slap him for his self-indugence, but Gidding's wit usually saves the occasion; and there will be tears on your cheek when you read of his love for his late wife, who died prematurely of cancer, and his son. A highly recommended read for anyone who's ever questioned why they should get out of bed in the morning, what to do with their lives, or whether to follow a dream - in short, most of us.

This is Proust without the boredom. This book is not only a feat of highly literate emotional precision, which you will see if you read just one chapter, but it is an unstoppable read And after finishing it leaves a spell that, at least for me, has yet to dissipate two days later. Check this book out by reading justa chapter or two, which will likely hook you into finishing the entire book in one day.

Failure won my heart. It was hard to put down despite some painful revelations it contained. Josh's voice is the voice of a generation who felt the blues but had no instrument to express it and when they tried, couldn't justify it. He reaches you and you are changed. Josh's honesty is a good journey to take for laughter, grief and winning over failure.

It takes a brave person to admit they're a failure, it takes a braver person to admit that they're human, and it takes the bravest person of all to admit that failure is inexplicably tied to humanity, and on some cosmic level, unescapable.
Whether one is an academic success with a failed marriage, a financial success with a failed set of morals, or a philosophical success with a failure as a lover, there is success and failue written into the DNA of everyone.
Success is a topic revered and explored on many levels; failure is not.
Professor Gidding in a pioneer on a frontier that many scholars before him have been afraid to explore. This alone, makes the book worth reading, but the humor and the insight provided within these pages is a lesson waiting to be learned for anyone who ever had a hint of self doubt, or self loathing, or depression about who they were and where they stood in this world. Every chapter has a focus, and because of the wide range of the author's experience, it is highly unlikly that there isn't something in this book for everyone, whether is be school problems, ambition issues, egotism, family relations, or tragedy in love.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and "Failure" is certainly the first step in a journey that all of us, especially Americans, should attempt.

You will read this in one sitting and then read it again. The author does not hold back anything. His suffering and struggle are on each page, yet there is a lot of humor also.

Bring tissues.Failure: An Autobiography