Acclaimed author, activist and academic Naomi Klein is topping ‘best’ lists with her recent book Doppelganger. Associate professor at UBC’s Department of Geography and Director of Public Engagement for the Centre for Climate Justice, Klein describes her writing in the book as a form of cognitive and cultural mapping.
“I think we need these orienting efforts because maps can help calm us in these chaotic times, and that calm is a precondition for rational decision making and strategic thinking,” Klein explains. And the critics agree. Doppelganger topped New York Magazine’s Vulture “Best Books of 2023” list.
“No recent book has better captured the absurdities and perils of the current moment in politics and culture and digital life than Doppelganger…. Other Naomi’s descent into right-wing madness is just a jumping-off point for Klein to explore a shadow world that exists concurrent to our own, where facts are malleable and disinformation is abundant, where conspiracy theories distort and exploit our very legitimate fears, and where fascism can arise as democracy’s evil twin.” – Vulture magazine
As praise and accolades continue to roll in as the new year unfolds, below are some highlights from the book’s impact in 2023.
Esquire’s 20 Best Books of 2023:
“Doppelgänger is a lucid frame on conspiracy movements and digital doubling, and a powerful implication of the double lives we choose to ignore.”
The Guardian’s Best Ideas Books of 2023:
“…her themes widen and darken, taking in a cultural history of doubles and evil twins, conspiracy theories more generally, the rise of the populist right in the person of Steve Bannon, and a close reading of Philip Roth, whose Operation Shylock she reads persuasively as the key to many such mythologies.”
Harper Bazaar’s The 45 Best New Books of 2023 You Won’t Put Down:
“Doppelganger is intellectual but not unapproachable, and provides a necessary, singular point of view for navigating 2023’s online identity crises.”
Indigo’s Best Books of the Year.
The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2023:
“After she was repeatedly confused online with the feminist scholar turned anti-vaxxer Naomi Wolf, Klein turned the experience into this sober, stylish account of the lure of disdain and paranoia.”
Winner of a 2024 Pacific Northwest Book Award
Slate’s 10 Best Books of 2023:
“Klein never loses either her sense of humor or her well-honed sense of the larger implications of her quandary.”
Time Magazine’s The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023:
“She weaves cultural criticism with personal anecdotes and self-examination into a book that’s bold enough to propose that we will all someday emerge from the rubble of the crumbling world—it will just take reimagining, collective organizing, and ego annihilating.”
Shortlisted for the 2024 Writers Prize – announcement to be made on March 13th, 2024.
Quick links:
- Learn more about Naomi Klein’s writing and research
- Read an exclusive Q&A with Naomi Klein about Doppelganger
- Find out more about Klein’s upcoming UBC course Climate Emergency – GEOG 201
- Learn more about the book
