Fail Better cover art

Fail Better

Why Baseball Matters

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Fail Better

By: Mark Kingwell
Narrated by: Jerry Lord
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

About this listen

Taking seriously the idea that baseball is a study in failure - a very successful batter manages a base hit in just three of every 10 attempts - Mark Kingwell argues that there is no better tutor of human failure's enduring significance than this strange, crooked game of base, where geometry becomes poetry.

Weaving elements of memoir, philosophical reflection, sports writing, and humour, Fail Better is an intellectual love letter to baseball by one of North America's most engaging philosophers. Kingwell illustrates complex concepts like theoretically infinite game-space, "time out of time", and the rules of civility with accessible examples drawn from the game, its history, and his own halting efforts to hit 'em where they ain't. Beyond a "Beckett meets baseball" study in failure, Kingwell crafts a thoughtful appreciation of why sports matter and how they change our vision of the world.

Never pretentious, always entertaining, Fail Better is set to be the homerun nonfiction title of the season.

©2017 Mark Kingwell (P)2017 Audible, Inc. Baseball & Softball Movements Philosophy Social Sciences Sports Game
All stars
Most relevant
This book is a real mess. But the flat drone half shout reading is so awful that maybe it wouldn't seem quite as bad if someone else was narrating.The stories many extremely boring are dropped in and out of such clumsy so called philosophical ruminations that fall out willy nilly and splat here and there like bizarre paint balls from the sky I can honestly say after skipping along hoping without hope to reach some relief point... That this is by far and away the worst book I have ever downloaded. And I never give bad reviews! And I'm a Canadian like the author. Whatever you do... Beware.

All Over The Place

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.