Linguist Amanda Montell describes her third book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, as “the book I’ve always dreamt of writing.” In the book, out April 9, Montell explores 11 of the 200-plus cognitive biases like sunk cost fallacy, zero-sum bias, and the IKEA effect to explain what she refers to as “modern irrationality.” (A cognitive bias is an error in thinking borne from our unique interpretation of the world.)
“This book is about such a big idea,” Montell tells Marie Claire. “It was based on me feeling this incredible dissonance that, despite living in the information age, life only keeps making less sense.”
