or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
42 used & new from £0.88
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams...
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams... (Paperback)

by Tim Clare (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.94 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £4.05 (37%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Thursday, February 11? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
27 new from £1.52 15 used from £0.88

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with One Day by David Nicholls

We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams... + One Day
Price For Both: £10.80

Show availability and delivery details

  • This item: We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams... by Tim Clare

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • One Day by David Nicholls

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio

Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio

by John Osborne
4.3 out of 5 stars (6)  £5.55
Submarine

Submarine

by Joe Dunthorne
4.6 out of 5 stars (15)  £4.98
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Orson Scott Card
4.3 out of 5 stars (11)  £5.01
One Day

One Day

by David Nicholls
4.5 out of 5 stars (111)  £3.86
The Spinning Top

The Spinning Top

~ Graham Coxon
4.2 out of 5 stars (11)  £7.98
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Ebury Press (4 Jun 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0091928591
  • ISBN-13: 978-0091928599
  • Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 191,037 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description

"Right!' My Dad slammed his fist against the dashboard. 'If you want to die let's f***ing die together!' 'Dad...don't', I said, referring to the profanity rather than the death-threat. But my father was lost in his own private Thelma and Louise moment. His sleep-deprived eyes were like ping-pong ball halves. His heel hit the accelerator'. Tim Clare had always dreamed of greatness; of writing a critically-acclaimed bestseller and quitting the rat-race of everyday life. The problem was that his friends had got there first and he was...well...nowhere. Seething with envy, single and still living with his parents, he decided to have one last shot at getting his masterpiece published. After all, things couldn't get any worse. Could they? From grovelling shamelessly to Jeffrey Archer on a reality TV show to a fraught encounter with The Most Powerful Woman in Publishing, a spectacular mental breakdown to an excruciating suicide pact moment with his dad, Tim soon finds the answer is a resounding 'yes'.

About the Author

Tim Clare is a writer and performer. He has has appeared on Radio 1, 2 and 3, written for the Guardian and The Times, and presented the Channel 4 series How To Get A Book Deal. As a stand-up poet he performs at clubs and festivals across the UK, including Glastonbury, Latitude, Leeds and Reading, and is a resident at Time Out Critic's Choice awarded sell-out literary cabaret club Homework.

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(4)
(4)
(4)
(3)
(3)
(2)
Agree with these tags?

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams...
88% buy the item featured on this page:
We Can't All be Astronauts: Your Friends are Successes. You're a Failure. One Last Chance to Reach for the Stars...: Your Friends Are Successes. ... One Last Chance to Follow Your Dreams... 4.2 out of 5 stars (5)
£6.94
Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio
7% buy
Radio Head: Up and Down the Dial of British Radio 4.3 out of 5 stars (6)
£5.55
Submarine
6% buy
Submarine 4.6 out of 5 stars (15)
£4.98
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Clare proves Dylan wrong, 12 July 2009
By Geoff Upton "gsrju" (Dorset, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a corker of a book, the funniest I've read for ages but also the most thoughtful. "There's no success like failure, but failure's no success at all" says Dylan in one of his songs, yet Tim Clare has made a huge success out of what he saw as failure. In a desperate quest for literary fame and fortune Clare has painfully funny encounters with lots of big name authors and publishers. Clare's insights are fascinating, like watching Louis Theroux trying to blend into a surreal backdrop.

Clare and the friends he writes about have come through a degree course in creative writing and boy, can he write. He cleverly interweaves friends, family, and celebrities in a narrative that never loses pace or fails to surprise. In between the laugh-out-loud comedy and crazy situations there is a lot of thoughtful, insightful writing about hope, despair, self-belief, talent and friendship. And if you're worried it's all going to be bleak, be reassured: it isn't. The book confirms that you learn from family and friends what you don't learn on a degree course.

This book should be made compulsory reading for anyone at a turning point in their life. It will also be enjoyed by anyone who has ever done something really stupid, regretted it, and then seen the funny side of it.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Uphill struggles can be funny, 7 July 2009
By D. J. Wiltshire (Bristol) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I really enjoyed reading Tim Clare's "We can't all be astronauts". It's a book like no other I've read: very hard to put down and intriguing. Accessible, yet a tour de force of wordsmithery.

It is ostensibly about the struggle to be a published author: not a who-dunnit, rather a how-did-he-get-it-done? Tim moves uneasily among the schmoozers and fakers of the publishing industry until he finally interviews its Pol Pot, who turns out to be ... read the book!

Where this book really scores, however, is on the intimacy of the relationship between the author and his reader. The book pulls no punches in describing the effects that this uphill struggle has on those around the author and (especially) on him. This, at times, makes for harrowing and moving reading. Yet Tim Clare's triumph is to keep the dark light: it is a book that may make you cry, but will certainly make you laugh.

Through it all, Tim develops as a person, and the last chapters are a touching lesson in acquired humanity.

Tim Clare has vaulted the first hurdle: he is a published author. He deserves now to glide over the second: to be a best-selling one.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Highly Enjoyable, Mostly Funny, A Little Bit Sad..., 24 Jun 2009
By C. Howard "Cath" (Ireland, at times) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Since childhood, Tim Clare had it all figured out - step 1: Grow up. Step 2: Write a novel that is hailed a critical and commercial success mere hours after its publication. Step 3: Enjoy life as a Famous Young Writer. Step 4: Never have to do anything else.

Unfortunately, by the ripe age of 26, Clare finds that three of those four have failed to materialize. He's living with his parents, plucking away at a suspect piece of fantasy fiction and drowning in the depths of his own mediocrity. Even more unfortunately, the plan has worked fantastically well for what seems like all of his friends, AKA the Most Talented Literary Peer Group Since 2004. (One of them has publishers fighting to pay a fat advance for his debut novel, while another snags a deal based on a single sheet of A4.) While his dream is lived out by everyone but him, Tim Clare, Friend to Bright Young Literary Things, becomes more and more despondent and starts, for the first time, to question his unwavering belief in his future as Tim Clare, Best Selling Author.

Luckily he also does a number of other weird and wonderful literary-related things - including embarrassing himself in front of Jeffery Archer and meeting the alleged `most powerful woman in publishing' - and these things, as related by Clare, will make you laugh until it hurts. The ending is unexpectedly moving, but not exactly a surprise - we are talking about the book he got published, after all.

We Can't All Be Astronauts is a really enjoyable read, and comes highly recommended. Add on an extra star if you've ever sat in the bedroom you grew up in, typed `Chapter One' on a fresh Word document and then spent the next three hours on Facebook taking quizzes like, `Which Transformer Are You?' - you'll enjoy it all the more.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Getting published is about practising until you're really good, then persevering until you're really lucky.


I remember reading somewhere that publishers and the BBC don't want books or plays about people struggling to be writers. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Peter Wade

5.0 out of 5 stars Down and Out in Hay and Edinburgh
There are two sorts of writers: the ones who can write, the ones who can't. It doesn't take long to differentiate - a few pages at most. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Timothy Withers

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
University of East Anglia 1 12 days ago
› See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject






i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.