Authenticity

‘Wide-ranging, witty and fresh … a stimulating read. Authentic fun’
Tim Harford, Financial Times Best Summer Books 2022

‘Brilliantly witty, profoundly illuminating, Alice Sherwood is a master storyteller’ Simon Schama

‘Thought-provoking and beautifully written’ Adrian Wooldridge, Washington Post

‘A sweeping and persuasive manifesto … witty and wide-ranging … a pleasure’
Literary Review

‘Terrific … the sheer breadth of her subject matter is extraordinary’
Matthew d’Ancona, Tortoisemedia.com

‘Alice Sherwood is the real deal’ Marcus du Sautoy

‘Fascinating and hugely entertaining’ Brian Eno

‘Unfailingly compelling and often shocking’ Philip Mould, presenter of Fake or Fortune?

‘Riveting … captivating … a thoroughly enjoyable debut’ Financial Times

We live in an age when the pursuit of authenticity – from living our 'best life' to eating artisan food – matters more and more to us, but where the forces of inauthenticity seem to be taking over. Our world is full of people and products that are not what they seem. We no longer know whether we are talking to a person or a machine. But we can fight back – and this award-winning book shows us how.

Authenticity argues that, although our counterfeit culture is shaped by the most powerful forces of evolution, economics, and technology, we can still come together to reclaim reality.

Along the way, we meet the world's greatest impostor, who finally became what he'd pretended to be; the wartime counterfeiter who fooled a nation; nature's most outrageous deceivers; the artist who encouraged people to forge his pictures; the 'authentic' brand that was anything but. But we also meet people living unexpectedly rewarding lives in virtual worlds, and foot soldiers in the 'armies of truth' who are taking down today's conspiracies and cons.

Provocative, insightful and original, Authenticity is that once-in-a-generation revelation: a work rich in histories but supremely and urgently of our own time. You'll never think about deception and reality in the same way again.

About the author

Currently a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Policy Institute at King’s College London and a director of an open source intelligence company, Alice Sherwood has undergraduate degrees in philosophy and in chemistry, an MBA from INSEAD, and an MA in literary criticism and narrative non-fiction. She has worked in business, investigative television documentary making, and education and multimedia production at the BBC. She is chair of the Rising Tide women’s network, and has served as a trustee of the Hay Festival Foundation and the London Library. She lives in London and Wales.

Authenticity is Alice’s first book. It won a Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction in 2020.