Overview

A passionate and entertaining guide to spotting and decoding the delusions we live under. Multinational oil corporations trumpet their green credentials. Shadowy billionaires orchestrate ‘grassroots’ political movements. Public-spending cuts that target the poor are billed as ‘giving power to the people’. Casually dressed employees play table football in airy open-plan offices, but work longer hours than ever before. These are just a few examples of the growing gap between appearance and reality in modern life. With the melting away of the conflicts between East and West and Right and Left, the old ideologies were supposedly consigned to history. But Eliane Glaser argues that they never really went away – they just went undercover, creating a looking-glass world in which reality is spun and crude vested interests appear in seductive new disguises. A world of illusion, persuasion and coercion which aims to conceal the truth and beguile us all. It’s time to radically alter the way we perceive the world, to raise a sceptical yet optimistic eyebrow. Time to get real. Get Real is a passionate and entertaining guide to spotting and decoding the delusions we live under – from ‘revolutionary’ plus-size models to ‘world-saving’ organic vegetables; from heavily scripted and edited ‘reality’ TV to ‘life-changing’ iPhone apps. Busting the jargon and unravelling the spin, Get Real reveals the secrets about modern life that we were never supposed to know. It’s an insider’s guide to understanding the present which puts the truth and the power to choose firmly in our hands. Only by telling it like it is can we improve – and maybe even save – our world for real.

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9780007490660

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Reviews

A quite brilliant reality check. Angry, erudite and accessible. I loved it. Dame Jenni Murray A sharp, lively wake-up call to free ourselves from the illusions that we live by. Crystal clear, elegantly written and inspiring, it is all the more necessary to read Glaser's book at a time when we are increasingly pressured to imbibe phony ideology, phony science and phony ethics. Being disabused by Glaser is a great pleasure. Darian Leader These are big ideas, laid out with precision, grace and urgency. I couldn't put it down. And this is normally the whole point of non-fiction, that you can put it down. Zoe Williams 'Eliane Glaser, whose persuasive forthcoming book Get Real pleas for authenticity against the spin of politics, celebrity and the marketplace' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'In an age when journalists have, in large numbers, moved from the bullshit-detection business to the bullshit-promulgation business, it's always welcome to come upon a book that hoists its flag proudly in the first camp. Eliane Glaser's is one such.' Sam Leith, Guardian 'In a world filled with bullshit, Glaser wields a shovel like Rambo wields a machine gun'. Time Out

“A quite brilliant reality check. Angry, erudite and accessible. I loved it.” Dame Jenni Murray “A sharp, lively wake-up call to free ourselves from the illusions that we live by. Crystal clear, elegantly written and inspiring, it is all the more necessary to read Glaser’s book at a time when we are increasingly pressured to imbibe phony ideology, phony science and phony ethics. Being disabused by Glaser is a great pleasure.” Darian Leader “These are big ideas, laid out with precision, grace and urgency. I couldn’t put it down. And this is normally the whole point of non-fiction, that you can put it down.” Zoe Williams ‘Eliane Glaser, whose persuasive forthcoming book Get Real pleas for authenticity against the spin of politics, celebrity and the marketplace’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent ‘In an age when journalists have, in large numbers, moved from the bullshit-detection business to the bullshit-promulgation business, it's always welcome to come upon a book that hoists its flag proudly in the first camp. Eliane Glaser's is one such.’ Sam Leith, Guardian 'In a world filled with bullshit, Glaser wields a shovel like Rambo wields a machine gun'. Time Out

Author Information

Eliane Glaser is a writer, radio producer, and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. Her articles have appeared in the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, and the London Review of Books.

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