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Nice Try: Stories of Best Intentions and Mixed Results

by Josh Gondelman

Personal essays about good intentions, mishaps, and starting again

Regular price $18.53 USD
Regular price $28.96 USD Sale price $18.53 USD
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Paperback New English

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Awards & Recognition

  • Critical praise

    Praise from John Oliver

    John Oliver praises the book’s stories as funny, touching, and worth reading.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Personal essays about good intentions, mishaps, and starting again

Josh Gondelman’s essay collection turns everyday attempts to do right by others into material for personal storytelling. The pieces range across romantic setbacks, workplace disappointments, a troubled road trip, adopting a dog, and a one-time experience with MDMA. Across these episodes, the recurring thread is persistence: plans go awry, but the narrator keeps trying to act with consideration and recover from embarrassment or failure. The book frames mixed outcomes not as grand defeats, but as part of the ordinary, often comic work of navigating relationships, ambitions, and self-improvement.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers who enjoy humorous personal essays
  • Fans of stories about everyday setbacks and resilience
  • Those interested in comedy-rooted memoir writing

Themes

Good intentionsFailure and recoveryRomantic mishapsProfessional setbacksEveryday absurdity

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"If you only read one book in your life, it probably shouldn't be this one. However, if you're not operating an inexplicable one-book policy, these stories are funny, touching, and more than worth your time." -- John Oliver

"Josh Gondelman is one of the most original hilarious voices out there today. This book will hook you and make you laugh and laugh." -- Amy Schumer

Emmy-Award winning writer and comedian Josh Gondelman's collection of personal stories of best intentions and mixed results.

Josh Gondelman knows a thing or two about trying--and failing. The Emmy Award-winning stand-up comic--dubbed a "pathological sweetheart" by the New York Observer--is known throughout the industry as one of comedy's true "nice guys." Not surprisingly, he's endured his share of last-place finishes. But he keeps on bouncing back.

In this collection of hilarious and poignant essays (including his acclaimed New York Times piece "What if I Bombed at My Own Wedding?"), Josh celebrates a life of good intentions--and mixed results. His true tales of romantic calamities, professional misfortunes, and eventual triumphs reinforce the notion: we get out of the world what we put into it. Whether he's adopting a dog from a suspicious stranger, mitigating a disastrous road trip, or trying MDMA for the first (and only) time, Josh only wants the best for everyone--even as his attempts to do the right thing occasionally implode.

Full of the warm and relatable humor that's made him a favorite on the comedy club circuit, Nice Try solidifies Josh Gondelman's reputation as not just a good guy, but a skilled observer of the human condition.

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