Winner of the 2016 Mavis Gallant Prize for Nonfiction
One of Hudson Booksellers' Best Business Interest Books of 2016
“Daniel Levitin’s field guide is a critical thinking primer for our shrill, data-drenched age. It’s an essential tool for really understanding the texts, posts, tweets, magazines, newspapers, podcasts, op-eds, interviews and speeches that bombard us every day. From the way averages befuddle to the logical fallacies that sneak by us, every page is enlightening.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Smarter, Faster, Better
“The world is awash with data, but not always with accurate information. A Field Guide to Lies does a terrific job of illustrating the difference between the two with precision—and delightful good humor.”—Charles Wheelan, Senior Lecturer and Policy Fellow, Rockefeller Center, Dartmouth College, author of Naked Economics
“A Field Guide to Lies by the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin lays out the many ways in which each of us can be fooled and misled by numbers and logic, as well as the modes of critical thinking we will need to overcome this.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Valuable tools for anyone willing to evaluate claims and get to the truth of the matter.”—Kirkus Reviews
“This useful, entertaining, and highly readable guide is ready to arm everyday citizens with the tools to combat the spread of spurious, and often ridiculous, information.”—Library Journal
“[A] book you may want to have close by at all times.”—Success Magazine
“[A Field Guide to Lies] serves as a kind of Strunk & White for sloppy thinkers.”—New York Journal of Books
“Entertaining and filled with helpful hints, A Field Guide to Lies is a valuable tool for navigating the daily data onslaught.”—San Jose Mercury News
“[S]mart and humorous…the tools anyone needs to tell good information from bad are in this definitive guide to critical thinking.”—Shelf Awareness
“Exceptional ... practical and essential advice.”—Big Think
“An entertaining, user-friendly primer on evaluating data wisely.”—The Washington Independent Review of Books
“This is a wonderful book. It covers so many of the insights of science, logic, and statistics that the public needs to know, yet are sadly neglected in the education that most of us receive.”—Edward K. Cheng, Tarkington Chair of Teaching Excellence and professor of law at Vanderbilt Law School
“Hits on the most important issues around statistical literacy, and uses good examples to illustrate its points. I could not put this book down. Reading it has been a pleasure, believe me. I am so impressed with Levitin's writing style, which is clear and simple, unlike much of the murky stuff that is written by statisticians and many others.”—Morris Olitsky, former Vice President, Market Research and Analysis, Prudential Financial, Statistician, U.S.D.A.
“Insightful and entertaining—an excellent work.”—Gregg Gascon, Biomedical Informatics, Ohio State University
“Just as Strunk and White taught us how to communicate better, the Field Guide to Lies is an indispensable guide to thinking better. As Big Data becomes a dominant theme in our culture, we are all obliged to sharpen our critical thinking so as to thwart the forces of obfuscation. Levitin has done a great service here.”—Jasper Rine, Professor of Genetics, Genomics, and Development, UC Berkeley
“Not since Huff's classic How to Lie with Statistics has a book so clearly described how numbers can be used to deceive and misdirect. Levitin shows how to critically evaluate claims that charlatans, the media, and politicians would have us believe.”—Stan Lazic, Team Leader in Quantitative Biology at AstraZeneca
“A must read! Professor Levitin convinces the reader why critical thinking has become even more crucial in the Information Age. As we are consistently bombarded with information, let’s question its veracity and acquire the tools to analyze it.”—Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou, Dean and Professor of Finance, Desautels Faculty of Management , McGill University
“Well researched, and provides a valuable guide to assist the public with a methodology for evaluating the truth behind this cacophony of information that constantly inundates.”—Patrick Martin, Magician
“[A] valuable primer on critical thinking that convincingly illustrates the prevalence of misinformation in everyday life.”—Publisher's Weekly
