*THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION**A
BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES NEW YORK TIMES GUARDIAN OBSERVER AND PROSPECT*'If I had to
name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years it would be this one' New
York Times 'A deeply compelling read ... urgent and necessary' Evening Standard Naomi Klein
author of era-defining bestsellers The Shock Doctrine This Changes Everything and No Logo is
back with her most compulsive and personal book yet: a revelatory journey into the mirror world
of our polarised age When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name but
had radically different harmful views was getting chronically mistaken for her it seemed too
ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn't. She started to find herself grappling
with a distorted sense of reality becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media
the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy
other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity - all we have to meet the world - so
unstable? To find out Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre uncanny mirror world:
one of conspiracy theories anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters where soft-focus wellness
influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of
protecting 'the children'). In doing so she lifts the lid on our own culture during this
surreal moment in history as we turn ourselves into polished virtual brands publicly shame
our enemies watch as deep fakes proliferate and whole nations flip from democracy to something
far more sinister. This is a book for our age and for all of us a deadly serious dark comedy
which invites us to view our reflections in the looking glass. It's for anyone who has lost
hours down an internet rabbit hole who wonders why our politics has become so fatally warped
and who wants a way out of our collective vertigo and back to fighting for what really matters.
