How To Be Right, James OBrien
How To Be Right, James OBrien
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How To Be Right
… in a world gone wrong

Author: James O'Brien

Narrator: James O'Brien

Unabridged: 4 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Virgin Digital

Published: 11/01/2018


Synopsis

Random House presents the audiobook edition of How to Be Right, written and read by James O'Brien.

Forget agreeing to disagree – it’s time to learn How To Be Right.

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 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

Reviews

Goodreads review by Claire on January 11, 2019

This was weird. I totally agree with James o’Brien’s opinions, so I thought I would have liked this book more than I did. As it is, I did enjoy it but I didn’t love it. He came across as slightly patronising - he seems to think hat the only reason people hate immigrants or find LGBT folk unpleasant......more

Goodreads review by Sid on November 12, 2018

I thought How To Be Right was excellent. It is readable, thoughtful, intelligent and humane. James O’Brien writes very well indeed. Drawing on his experience as a print journalist and then as a long-standing and very successful radio phone-in host, he dissects the prejudices, myths and downright lies......more

Goodreads review by Joe on May 05, 2019

Reading “How to be Right” is a curious experience. I agree with just about every agreement and every word uttered by James O’Brien throughout this short polemic about fake news, the normalisation of hate speech and the populist assault on objective truth. In most respects, O’Brien comes across as a......more

Goodreads review by Matt on December 22, 2018

A short read, but very good. Unfortunately, those who should read this book never will. The audiobook is narrated by the author, and I'd recommend it also.......more

Goodreads review by Sam on March 06, 2019

I wanted to give this book four stars. I like it. It makes me think and makes me question myself. But in places author felt too patronizing. It nearly took off one of the stars, but then(whilst contemplating over this book) I happened to overhear completely different radio show with three callers in......more


Quotes

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.

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

Almost indecently enjoyable

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

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

A simply brilliant read ... I love this book!

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

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

Funny, clever and alarming ... a modern day travelogue through the airwaves with all the mistrust, misinformation, contradictions and manipulation laid bare