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

O'Brien, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753553120 ISBN 13: 9780753553121

Publisher: WH Allen, 2019

The voice of reason in a world that won’t shut up.

The Sunday Times Bestseller

Every day, James O’Brien listens to people blaming hard-working immigrants for stealing their jobs while scrounging benefits, and pointing their fingers at the EU and feminists for destroying Britain. But what makes James’s daily LBC show such essential listening – and has made James a standout social media star – is the incisive 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 unchallenged 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 corporate cronies, this book is your conversation survival guide.

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.