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Brooke Gladstone

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The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time Paperback – May 16, 2017

by Brooke Gladstone (Author)

4.4 330 ratings

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Every week on the public radio show On the Media, the award-winning journalist Brooke Gladstone analyzes the media and how it shapes our perceptions of the world. Now, from her front-row perch on the day’s events, Gladstone brings her genius for making insightful, unexpected connections to help us understand what she calls—and what so many of us can acknowledge having—“trouble with reality.”

Reality, as she shows us, was never what we thought it was—there is always a bubble, people are always subjective and prey to stereotypes. And that makes reality actually more vulnerable than we ever thought. Enter Donald J. Trump and his team of advisors. For them, as she writes, lying is the point. The more blatant the lie, the easier it is to hijack reality and assert power over the truth. Drawing on writers as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Walter Lippmann, Philip K. Dick, and Jonathan Swift, she dissects this strategy, straight out of the authoritarian playbook, and shows how the Trump team mastered it, down to the five types of tweets that Trump uses to distort our notions of what’s real and what’s not.

And she offers hope. There is meaningful action, a time-tested treatment for moral panic. And there is also the inevitable reckoning. History tells us we can count on it.

Brief and bracing, The Trouble with Reality shows exactly why so many of us didn’t see it coming, and how we can recover both our belief in reality—and our sanity.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"… a battle plan for individuals anxiously 'watching the edifice of reality collapse.'” —The New Yorker

"Brooke Gladstone has whipped up a short stiff drink of truth. You'll be better for taking it." —George Packer, author of The Unwinding

"A spirited rampage through the hall of mirrors that is the new post-truth era. I read this in one sitting, and at end, for a fleeting moment, felt like I had a new hammer in my hand."—Jad Abumrad, co-host of Radio Lab

About the Author

Brooke Gladstone is the co-host and editor of the Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast On the Media from WNYC Studios, heard by well over a million people each week. She’s also author of The Influencing Machine, a comic book treatise on two millennia of media madness. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company; First Edition (May 16, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 152350238X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1523502387
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.21 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 1 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #106,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #90 in Social Philosophy
- #158 in Democracy (Books)
- #293 in Communication & Media Studies

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4.4 330 ratings

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Customers find the book provides valuable insights into their thought process and context. They describe it as a worthwhile read that makes them think. Readers appreciate the concise yet powerful writing style.

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55 customers mention "Insight"50 positive5 negative

Customers find the book provides insightful and valuable context about how our obsession with technology impacts us. They describe it as an illuminating examination of the social nature of technology and a useful approach to a partial explanation. The analogies are insightful and thought-provoking, making the book educational and engaging.

"Great book! If you are looking for an interesting, educational and thought provoking that will both challenge your own reality and explain why it..." Read more

"This book provides the insightful reflections of a highly intelligent and genuinely earnest chronicler of the current political and media culture..." Read more

"I believe this thoughtful meditation on America's current political climate will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the subject, no matter where he/..." Read more

"...most interesting about this brief book was the wide and illuminating roster of authorities and thinkers she brings to the table: Hannah Arendt,..." Read more

51 customers mention "Readability"45 positive6 negative

Customers find the book readable and thought-provoking. They say it's a quick read but packed with ideas that keep you thinking. The author is described as intelligent and genuinely earnest, chronicling the current political climate.

"...difficult to get people to see your perspective – this is a fine investment in your time...." Read more

"...This was a tract and not a full book so it took less than 2hrs to read although I think I may go back and read it again in a few months to keep..." Read more

"...the insightful reflections of a highly intelligent and genuinely earnest chronicler of the current political and media culture..." Read more

"...A deep, glorious read." Read more

10 customers mention "Shortness"7 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the book's conciseness. They find it to the point and readable, mentioning that it could be much shorter.

"...It is a short book, but if you have an open mind this author may increase your ability to understand others reality...." Read more

"...Also many hundreds of pages shorter. Thank you." Read more

"...pages of large font with few words per page, it is shorter than some articles in The Atlantic or Rolling Stone...." Read more

"A wonderful book; short, pithy and to the point...." Read more

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Chazz Falcone
Helps you understand everyone's reality
Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2017
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Great book! If you are looking for an interesting, educational and thought provoking that will both challenge your own reality and explain why it is so difficult to get people to see your perspective – this is a fine investment in your time. It is a short book, but if you have an open mind this author may increase your ability to understand others reality.
The baseline or case study explains do with current event and the Trump winning the 2016 election. It does empathize with those who thought that America could never elect a person of such questionable character and integrity, but it happened and we all have to deal with it. It also, tries to explain the reality of those who did vote for him and what their reality is versus those who did not vote for Mr. Trump.
I found the book both refreshing and conversational. It would make a great center piece.
Charles

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4boyz4me
Thoughtful read with some insights as to what has happened and how we might regain some sanity
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2017
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Brooke Gladstone, an award winning journalist, runs a weekly show on NPR called On the Media which highlights how the media shapes our perceptions on reality. There was an interesting point made early on that facts are facts but everyone's reality is different because it is based on your perceptions, what facts you have accepted (and what you have not), your personal history, and so much more that makes each of us unique. We can all observe the exact same thing but it will be incorporated into our unique realities differently. And our reality does not like to change, it does not like to accept new facts that show that something else we believe to be real is actually false. And this is where the trouble with our current reality in our country comes from. Now is a time when we must try to find the ties that bring us closer together, have dialogues, and learn how to reach out of our own reality bubble, to break through it, and figure out how our reality coincides with that of others to form a reality formed in facts that we can agree to. In the past, the basic facts and reality were not seriously in question and now everything seems to be. Until we can agree on basic facts, we cannot come together as a nation or a world. She talks about how easy it has been to manipulate people and compares much of what we have been going through using the lens of many different authors (I cringed a lot at her thoughts on Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World since my thoughts mirrored hers in many ways when I first read those books several years ago). This was a tract and not a full book so it took less than 2hrs to read although I think I may go back and read it again in a few months to keep some of these thoughts more fresh in my head.

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5 people found this helpful

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Timothy Seltzer
A Gestalt for Our Zeitgeist
Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2017
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This book provides the insightful reflections of a highly intelligent and genuinely earnest chronicler of the current political and media culture (one of the hosts of NPR's "On the Media" weekly program), on how and why we got to such a paradoxical and divided place in our great American democracy and press. It reads as a conceptual romp through various cultural icons, from Jonathan Swift to Jefferson to Seinfeld, so I found myself having to think in more of an artistic way (rather than the professional STEM mindset, I use most waking hours), but most of the connections the author makes I was able to follow. By accompanying her on her intellectual journey of processing the last election and the current administration, I feel better, in that I at least somewhat comprehend what is going on, and that there are things I can actually do to build and grow in my understanding, accepting, and bridging the chasm on a personal level.

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17 people found this helpful

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M. Schwartz
What's Your Reality?
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2017
Verified Purchase
I believe this thoughtful meditation on America's current political climate will be enjoyed by anyone interested in the subject, no matter where he/she falls on the political spectrum. No doubt Brooke's book will be most appealing to left-leaning members of the On the Media audience, her NPR show co-hosted by Bob Garfield. I have listened to the program for many years and if you are like me, you will recognize "The Trouble with Reality" as an extended think piece as told from a distinct On the Media perspective. This is a very good thing and if you are a fan of the show a purchase here is a no-brainer. In terms of content, the book considers Trump's "post-reality" America but resists the urge to demonize Trump as its cause but rather its most obvious symptom. (Don't worry, Trump gets his due.) If you are looking for deep insight into how we got here, you may be disappointed by the book, since it is less of a history lesson and more of an extended advice column. For a really good overview of what some call "consensus reality" I recommend Kurt Andersen's extensive Atlantic piece from the Sept 2017 issue, "How America Lost Its Mind". Despite its inflammatory title the article does a very good job of painting a timeline of America's unique form of warped groupthink, from the 60s to today. You may be surprised at how close the hippie version of "post-reality" is to the extreme right's. As a companion to Brooke's book, it may help fill in the blanks. Both texts really got me thinking about how human beings construct the various realities that we experience every day of our collective lives.

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6 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer
Read it...it is definitely enlightening!
Reviewed in Canada on October 20, 2017
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This book is written in a way that everyone can understand and put some perspective in the world we now live in.

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