How To Be Right: ... in a world gone wrong - Hardcover

O'Brien, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0753553090 ISBN 13: 9780753553091

Publisher: WH Allen, 2018

Synopsis

The runaway Sunday Times bestseller by one of the most incisive broadcasters around.

Every day, James O’Brien listens to people blaming benefits scroungers, the EU, Muslims, feminists and immigrants. But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the careful way he punctures their assumptions and dismantles their arguments live on air, every single morning.

In the bestselling How To Be Right, James provides a hilarious and invigorating guide to talking to people with faulty opinions. With chapters on every lightning-rod issue, James shows how people have been fooled into thinking the way they do, and in each case outlines the key questions to ask to reveal fallacies, inconsistencies and double standards.

If you ever get cornered by ardent Brexiteers, Daily Mail disciples or little England patriots, this book is your conversation survival guide.
‘I have had a ringside seat as a significant swathe of the British population was persuaded that their failures were the fault of foreigners, that unisex lavatories threatened their peace of mind and that ‘all Muslims’ must somehow apologise for terror attacks by extremists. I have tried to dissuade them and sometimes succeeded... The challenge is to distinguish sharply between the people who told lies and the people whose only offence was to believe them.’
– James O’Brien

About this title

Review

"O’Brien is an exceptional broadcaster with a peerless ability to calmly point out the absurdity of certain viewpoints, a quality which similarly runs through this book ... provides a much-needed examination of the blustering rhetoric of politicians and media pundits, and brings a sliver of comfort to readers that they are not alone in their despair." (The Guardian)

"James O’Brien has become the conscience of liberal Britain" (New Statesman)

"Almost indecently enjoyable" (Robert Webb)

"I know few broadcasters as consistently, forensically, brilliant as James O’ Brien. Here, he shows us -- with empathy, edge and exquisite comedy -- how it happens" (Emily Maitlis)

"In the age of the tweet, such verbal ability increasingly seems like a superpower" (The Times)

"A simply brilliant read ... I love this book!" (Jamie Oliver)

"A total joy. If you feel like the world is going to hell in a handcart, here's the brakes" (Caitlin Moran)

"This book is required reading to slice through the rhetoric, slogans & bluster of politics and politicians. James is the broadcaster we need right now, setting the world to rights one call at a time" (Susanna Reid)

"Funny, clever and alarming ... a modern day travelogue through the airwaves with all the mistrust, misinformation, contradictions and manipulation laid bare" (Krishnan Guru-Murthy)

"Intelligent, funny and worrying. An unsurprisingly brilliant read from a great broadcaster. I vehemently wish that everyone would read it. The World and this country would be a better place if they did." (Gary Lineker)

About the Author

James O'Brien is a writer and radio broadcaster. His journalism has appeared everywhere from the TLS to the Daily Mirror. He has presented BBC Two’s Newsnight and his own daytime talk show O’Brien on ITV. His daily current affairs phone-in show on LBC has a million weekly listeners.

Edition details

• Publisher: WH Allen
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0753553090
• ISBN 13: 9780753553091
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240