AustLit

'WHEN I WAS small my mother gave me a copy of The Arabian Nights, hardback and beautiful, with a cover that swung open like a heavy door. It was the right thing to give a child who had started incessantly telling stories without much consideration for why you would. Back then I thought telling a story was just a way to pass the time, or a way to mash concepts just to see what would happen. I had written one about a forlorn starfish who just wanted an office job, one about a dragon whose fiery breath got funnelled into an oven by a town baker. Stuff happened that wouldn’t usually, the end.'(Introduction)

'What if you’re not who you think you are?
What if you don’t really know the people closest to you?
And what if your most deeply-held beliefs turn out to be … wrong?

'In Stop Being Reasonable, philosopher Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells gripping true stories that show the limits of human reason. Susie realises her husband harbours a terrible secret, Dylan leaves the cult he’s been raised in since birth and, after impersonating someone else for a month on reality TV, Alex discovers he can no longer return to his former identity. All of them radically alter their beliefs about the things that matter most.

'What makes them change course? What does this say about our own beliefs? And, in an increasingly divided world, what does it teach us about how we might change the minds of others?

'Inspiring, perceptive and full of moving stories, Stop Being Reasonable is an illuminating exploration of the place where philosophy and real life meet.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.