Alan Jacobs has thought a lot about thinking, both as an academic and as a participant in various cultural discourses. How to Think is his leisurely treatise on the importance of maintaining a spirit of inquiry and resisting rigidity of thought, and is timely in its dissection of contemporary culture, including the rise of tabloid-fuelled populism, the dangers of echo chambers and the factionalism of the twittersphere. Jacobs is particularly acute on how the way we think is inextricably linked to our social prejudices and preconceptions, and the fallacies that underlie notions, such as “thinking for oneself”. Courteous and affable in tone, the book is neither academic study nor polemic, but rather an armchair reader for a vast and varied subject that leaves the reader with practical pointers and a list of interesting references to follow up: from George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language to Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow.

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