Sometimes even the smallest mistake can feel like the end of the world. Whether it’s as simple as leaving the coffee pot on in the morning or as detrimental as a medical error in the operating room, any mistake is something we are conditioned to fear and to avoid — despite the grade school lesson that we all “learn from our mistakes”, which is easily forgotten in adulthood and particularly in the workplace, where mistakes are seen as failures.

New York Times columnist Alina Tugend helps us remember why mistakes are a good thing. And in Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong, narrator Elizabeth London plunges into Tugend’s fascinating study of making mistakes and why the fear surrounding them is so dangerous. Excessive fear surrounding mistakes leads to covering up, which means no one learns anything from the mistake. Instead, Tugend argues that we should embrace all mistakes, and that measures should be taken to study and correct them. Without information and intervention, the error cannot be avoided in the future. London’s narration is clear and direct, and her tone becomes more enlightened as Better By Mistake progresses and she connects with Tugend’s ideas.

The most compelling part of Tugend’s study is of mistakes in two fields which come with devastating consequences — aviation and medicine. London approaches these chapters with a curiosity that will feel familiar to the listener, surprised to learn that both doctors and air traffic controllers share Tugend’s philosophy that we should embrace every mistake so that we can learn from them. While the consequences are much more detrimental in these arenas, the approach is the same. Better By Mistake offers a cogent argument for the benefits of making mistakes and a listening experience that everyone can easily connect with. —Suzanne Day