This is Kelsey Patterson with the Sioux City Public Library and you’re listening to Check It Out.
Writer, linguist, and host of the hit podcast, Sounds Like a Cult, Amanda Montell turns her keenly knowledgeable eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in what may turn out be her most personal and electrifying work yet, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.
Drawing from the linguistic insights and sociological explorations of her previous two books, this instant New York Times bestseller is a must-read and has already made the Amazon Editor’s list of Best Books of the Year So Far for 2024.
“Magical thinking” can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own food, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in today’s modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.
Through razor-sharp writing in deeply funny and accessible chapters, and intertwining her personal experiences with in-depth analysis, Montell delves into a wide variety of the cognitive biases that run roughshod in our brains. From how the “halo effect” spawns’ worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the “sunk cost fallacy” can keep us in bad relationships long after we’ve realized they aren’t serving us. And the sheer depth of research that went into this book is evident.
Check out The Age of Magical Overthinking and other insightful works of society and culture nonfiction like it at the Sioux City Public Library.
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