The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell

The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of 2024

From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking.

Utilizing the linguistic insights of her "witty and brilliant" (Blyth Roberson, author of America the Beautiful?) first book Wordslut and the sociological explorations of her breakout hit Cultish, Amanda Montell now turns her erudite eye to the inner workings of the human mind and its biases in her most personal and electrifying work yet.

"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 peaches, 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 the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.

In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the "halo effect" cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the "sunk cost fallacy" can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we've realized they're not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell's prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it.

Amanda lives in Los Angeles and works as a writer, videographer, and linguist. She is a staff features editor at Byrdie.com, an online beauty and wellness magazine, and her work has featured in Marie Claire, Woman's Day, The Rumpus, and Time Out magazine. Amanda is also the host and creator of The Dirty Word, a online series exploring language, gender, and pop culture that airs on Wifey.tv and has been published in Glamour, Bustle, Refinery29, Hello Giggles, and Bust Magazine. Amanda earned a magna cum laude degree in Linguistics from NYU. @amanda_montell is her Instagram handle.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781668007976
ISBN 10	1668007975
Titel	The Age of Magical Overthinking
Autor	Amanda Montell
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Atria/One Signal Publishers
Erscheinungsjahr	2024-04-09
Seitenanzahl	320
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.