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    The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
    The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
    The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

    Written by Amanda Montell

    Narrated by Amanda Montell

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    About this audiobook

    INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    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.

    Editor's Note

    Illuminating and relatable…

    “I wrote this book for anyone who feels like it’s just incredibly hard to exist as a human in the world right now but can’t quite put their finger on why,” says author Montell (“Wordslut,” “Cultish”). In illuminating and relatable essays, Montell explores the fallout of information overload, including our unhealthy obsession with keeping up appearances on social media and the commodification of mental health. This book is the inspiration we all need to step away from the screen (and the chaos), even for just a moment.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 9, 2024
    ISBN9781797175577
    Author

    Amanda Montell

    Amanda Montell is a writer and linguist from Baltimore. She is the author of the acclaimed books Wordslut, Cultish, and The Age of Magical Overthinking. Along with hosting the podcast Sounds Like a Cult, her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, and more. She holds a degree in linguistics from NYU and lives in Los Angeles with her partner, plants, and pets. Find her on Instagram @Amanda_Montell.

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    • 5/5
      Everyone needs to listen to this. It gives you permission to be nice to yourself and understand everyone might be different, but we're all going through the same sh$t