How to think: a guide for the perplexed

'How to Think' is a contrarian treatise on why we're not as good at thinking as we assume - but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life.

Most of us don't want to think, writes the American essayist Alan Jacobs.

Thinking is trouble. It can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends.

Finally, thinking is slow, and that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the echo chamber of social media, where speed and factionalism trump accuracy and nuance.

In this clever, witty book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that prevent thought - forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, such as 'alternative facts', and information overload.

He also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well.