How to be right...in a world gone wrong

by James O'Brien

Paper Book, 2019

Status

Available

Call number

303.38

Genres

General Nonfiction

Nonfiction

All Topics

Collection

Non-Fiction

Publication

London : WH Allen, 2019.

Description

The voice of reason in a world that won't shut up. The Sunday Times Bestseller Winner of the Parliamentary Book Awards 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.… (more)

Media reviews

The Guardian

O’Brien .... spends three hours a day, five days a week, talking to callers about their political concerns. The book is neatly divided into chapters that cover the subjects most frequently raised, among them political correctness, Islam and Islamism, Brexit, Trump, the age gap and feminism.

Within these chapters, O’Brien includes transcriptions of on-air conversations with his callers, around which he wraps informed, sharply articulated analysis.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member soylentgreen23

James O'Brien is nearly always right. As a call-in radio host with LBC, he fields a large number of calls every day on a wide-ranging assortment of topics, and yet in the majority of his discussions and debates he comes out on top.

How is this possible? The answer is surprisingly simple, and is one

that O'Brien carefully unpacks in his book of essays, 'How to Be Right.'

The answer is to ask questions. Simple questions, like 'Why do you think that that's the case?' These are questions that all interviews should be ready to use in every circumstance and yet, in today's hands-off, overly-subjective media, very few do. But the result is amazing: strongly-held views, like why Brexit is such a good idea, unravel at the tugging of this first string. It generally turns out that the holder of these beliefs does not fully understand them, or fully understand why they are holding them in the first place. Tug, and they fall apart - and that is all you have to do to be right.

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LibraryThing member TheCrow2

In his new book the popular radio host writing about the topics dividing the country nowadays; Trump, Brexit, LGBT rights, xenophobia, etc. The book, with excerpts from his radio show, is an interesting summary of an intelligent liberal person`s view about today`s Britain.

LibraryThing member arewenotben

Rounding out to 3.5. O'Brien is preaching to the converted here but it's a short, entertaining and engaging book (the audiobook is very well produced too, with example conversations from his radio show reperformed).

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