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There’s nothing like stories about spectacular failures to lighten one’s mood — it makes one’s personal mistakes seem so insignificant. Failures and Fiascos is an entertaining read about how the grand plans of powerful people can go horribly wrong.

Author Dan Soucoup starts with some doomed nineteenth-century megaprojects. For instance, the construction of the Shubenacadie Canal — a shortcut across Nova Scotia between Halifax and the Minas Basin — was so badly mismanaged that it took thirty-five years to build and was obsolete by the time it opened in 1861, since railways had taken the place of canals for transporting goods. Fortunately, it remains a nice recreational water route today.

Then there was the great log raft experiment — a ten-thousand-tonne sea-going monster to be floated from New Brunswick to New York in 1886 that turned out to be too heavy to launch.

Readers will be familiar with some of the twentieth-century failures: Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford’s “pickle palace” — the space age Sprung greenhouse of the late 1980s that ended up costing provincial taxpayers $27.50 per cucumber; New Brunswick’s 1985 “tainted tuna” scandal, in which the federal fisheries minister overruled food inspectors’ findings in order to save jobs at a canning factory; and, of course, the Bricklin sports car.

The Bricklin — which graces the cover of the book — holds a special place as an icon of failure. The image of New Brunswick Premier Richard Hatfield hitting the 1974 re-election campaign trail in a bright orange Bricklin that couldn’t be driven at night because the cool pop-up lights were stuck shut, couldn’t be driven in rain because of leaks, and couldn’t risk getting a flat because there was no room for a spare is beyond entertaining. Despite pouring millions of tax dollars into an outrageously flawed — but very flashy — vehicle, Hatfield coasted back into office. You can’t make this stuff up.