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

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

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

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

The conscience of liberal Britain

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

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

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

Such verbal ability seems like a superpower

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

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

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.

A beautiful account of the universal love affair between mothers and sons. Justin Webb's acute observation of his eccentric, emotionally-repressed mum is full of love and generosity and will give hope to parents' everywhere.

A brave and emotional book

Justin Webb's memoir is unique: for its style, acute observation, and the combination of being unflinching and written with love.

Justin Webb's vivid childhood memoir reads like a collection of scenes from cherished sitcoms of his youth. A life spent under the spell of eccentric "ineffably snobbish" mother Gloria and "stark staring mad" stepfather Charles is part Keeping Up Appearances and part Reggie Perrin. Webb writes about it all with wit and fondness but beneath the surface lurks a great deal of heartbreak ... Webb has always seemed unflappable on the airwaves. These entertaining soul-searching memoirs help to explain his ability to keep calm and carry on.

He may have one of the bestknown voices in Britain as the longest-serving presenter of Radio 4's Today programme, but it turns out he is a wonderful writer, too.
This superb memoir stops just as Webb joins the BBC and is an immaculate portrait of a certain type of middle-class upbringing in the 1970s ... To those of us of, um, a certain age, one of the joys of this warm, generous book (significantly, dedicated to his stepfather as well as his mother) is the detail of life in that extraordinary decade - nipping off with a packet of Players No6, cider at 70p a gallon, listening to Fire by Arthur Brown or watching Tomorrow's World where 'chaps in ill-fitting suits tried to explain new-fangled devices called computers'. A pleasure to read.

One of the best biographies of the year: a surprisingly upbeat and witty 'misery memoir'.

The world's poor and dispossessed could have no more articulate or insightful a champion

An accessible and exceptional humanitarian

Sen is one of the great minds of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We owe him a huge debt

A distinguished inheritor of the tradition of public philosophy and reasoning - Roy, Tagore, Gandhi, Nehru ... if ever there was a global intellectual, it is Sen