*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.
