How Not To Be Wrong
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  • Published: 22 October 2020
  • ISBN: 9780753557921
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
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How Not To Be Wrong

The Art of Changing Your Mind

Formats & editions
Paperback
20 Jul 2021
EBook
22 Oct 2020
Audiobook
22 Oct 2020
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James O’Brien – bestselling author, radio and podcast sensation, twitter phenomenon – answers the question he is asked more than any other: ‘what have you changed you mind about?’ Why all of us must kick the tyres of our opinions, check our assumptions and make sure we really think what we think we do.

There's no point having a mind if you're not willing to change it

In his bestselling How To Be Right, James provided an invigorating guide to how to talk to people with bad opinions. And yet the question he always gets asked is 'If you're so sure about everything, haven't you ever changed your mind?'

In an age of us vs. them, tribal loyalties and bitter divisions, the ability to change our minds may be the most important power we have. In this intimate, personal new book, James's focus shifts from talking to other people to how you talk to yourself about what you really think. Ranging across a dazzling array of big topics, cultural questions and political hot potatoes, James reveals where he has changed his mind, explains what convinced him, and shows why all of us need to kick the tyres of our opinions, check our assumptions and make sure we really think what we think we do.

Coloured with stories of changing minds from the incredible guests on his podcasts and callers to his radio show, and spanning big ideas like press regulation and brexit, through to playful subjects like football and dog-ownership, How Not To Be Wrong is packed with revelations, outrage, conversations and lots of humour.

Because in a world that seems more divided than ever, if you can't change your own mind you'll never really be able to change anyone else's.
  • Published: 22 October 2020
  • ISBN: 9780753557921
  • Imprint: Virgin Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
Categories:
Share…

About the author

James O'Brien

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 1.2 million weekly listeners. His last book, How to be Right, was a Sunday Times Bestseller.

portrait photo of James O'Brien

Also by James O'Brien

How To Be Right
How They Broke Britain
See all

Praise for How Not To Be Wrong

Disarmingly honest about where he has been wrong, this book is a refreshing reminder of our ability to change our minds

Susanna Reid

Blending profound self-reflection with genuine warmth... the perfect book for a loud world that seems more divided than ever

John Amaechi OBE

The conscience of liberal Britain

New Statesman

I know few broadcasters as consistently, forensically, brilliant as James O'Brien

Emily Maitlis

Such verbal ability seems like a superpower

The Times

Classic James O'Brien - smart, analytical, self-aware and important to public debate at a time the toffs in power are taking it into the sewer

Alastair Campbell

James is more right than ever -- particularly in our entrenched, binary thinking culture -- about the importance of being able to admit to being wrong

David Baddiel

An admirably personal guide to the lost art of changing your mind. James showed me how often a change of mind is really a change of heart

Marina Hyde

Simply brilliant ... Its calm but brutal honesty makes for compelling reading. This book is needed now more than ever

The Secret Barrister

Highly personal and confessional, yet also a passionate and brilliantly argued appeal against the dangerous tribalism of our times

David Olusoga

An exceptional broadcaster with a peerless ability to calmly point out the absurdity of certain viewpoints

Guardian

A model of lucidity, humour and humanity - we should be thankful that we have him

Times Literary Supplement

Far and away the best thing he has ever written -- indeed, a kind of deconstruction of everything he has written and said, or at least propounded. A series of reflections on various topical themes that doubles as a memoir, almost a mea culpa, about the psychological origin of his opinions, and of the force and certitude with which he used to wield them.

New Statesman Book of the Year