Wrong! 101 Reasons Why You Should Never Listen to Anyone

Howard’s immensely charming, fascinating, and reassuring debut collection of assessments and aphorisms proves that critics are consistently terrible judges of talent and insight. Stuffy and pessimistic “experts” said Thomas Edison was addled and unteachable, George Gershwin had no musical talent, the Gettysburg Address was silly and forgettable, Ty Cobb was choosing a useless career, the Mustang had an amateurish design, there was no market for television, Rudyard Kipling was a hack writer, Steve Jobs would destroy Apple, no one would visit the Grand Canyon, and Citizen Kane was dull. Even Margaret Thatcher predicted there would be no female prime minister in her lifetime. Thankfully the inventors, entertainers, and visionaries on the receiving end of these criticisms were persistent in their pursuits. Howard goes through the not-so-encouraging early years of such luminaries as Oprah Winfrey, William Faulkner, Robert Goddard, Mohammad Ali, Louis Pasteur, and Winston Churchill to show that the best revenge is to simply prove the critics wrong. Original, entertaining, inspirational, and, most of all, encouraging, this book is great for anyone in need of a pep talk. (Oct.)