TRUTH ABOUT LIES, THE

by Aja Raden

A hugely entertaining compendium of lying combined with the latest psychological research and studies.Fibbing, prevaricating, stretching the truth, white lies, of omission, of commission. Lying is so pervasive that we have countless words for it. But have you ever considered why you believed a lie you were told - or why we lie at all?In this witty, whirlwind tour through the annuls of deceit, bestselling author Aja Raden combines psychology, popular science and history to explore everything you've ever wanted to know about manipulation and lying, showing how it evolved and why even the birds and the bees do it. From 'big lies' like the English gent who invented a South American country to pyramid schemes like Bernie Madoff, this is an eye-opening primer that decodes how we behave and function, and reveals how lying shapes our experience of the world around us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology, History, Philosophy, Science, Politics

Paperback

First published May 11, 2021

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

First and foremost, a large thank you to NetGalley, Aja Raden, and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy of this publication, which allows me to provide you with an unbiased review.

Everyone lies! Let’s get that out of the way before we get any further. Aja Raden sets out to explore the world of lies that seems to have woven its way into our moral fabric, offering the reader some insight in to why we lie, how it has become commonplace, and what lies have become supposed truths over the centuries. While she attempts to divide the types of lies into three categories, she is able to show that some lies have turned to accepted truths, though many are oblivious to the fact that will is constantly being pulled over their eyes. With straightforward writing and insightful research, Raden provides the reader with a great exploration of how truth and lies are interconnected on so many levels.

Raden uses the first part of the book to explore the world of lies and swindles that some have used to tell others. Her example of a man travelling from Europe to ‘settle’ a territory in the Americas, only to sell tracts to unwitting people shows that some people will believe something because it is so far-fetched that it must have a grain of reality. Raden hashes out how and why people believe these types of large-scale cons, explaining that the extravagance is too large to trick people, so it must be true. Yet, people fall for the cons each and every time because they are hard-wired to trust in others. Shell games, where someone is to guess the location of a pea under a shell, are also prime examples of putting trust in others. The expectation is that one of the shells will hold the sought after pea, while in reality, a sleight of hand means that none of the shells possesses the item in the long run. Trust and deception are intertwined here, providing the con artist the greatest advantage throughout.

The book continues by exploring the large-scale world of deception of the masses through lies, deception, and guilt. Raden uses some wonderful examples, the greatest of which is the promotion of medications of all sorts. The reader learns of the origins of ‘snake oil salesman’ and how the masses are duped into trusting that their ailments can be cured with one item of another. Scientific studies show the effect of placebos to the individual, debunking the need for the miracle cure if the personal inherently trusts that what they are putting in their mouths (or elsewhere) is the cure all. This can be extrapolated to the world of televangelism, where the only path os the one used by the speaker on the television, whose needs to ‘save’ are wrapped in a pricy donation. People fall for this because they cannot see past the wonders of salvation or healing, however dubious or backwards it may look on the outside.

Raden’s final section tackles the topic of lies on the grandest scale, the con, where it is society who is the targeted victim of falsehoods. Using platforms of media and mass information distribution, Raden shows how there are certain soapboxes that have been used to push an idea to the masses, all in the hopes of spreading a falsehood that is so vast that it seems real. While many readers may have lived through the time where #fakenews was a daily cry, Raden explores what it means and how it works, amongst other areas of societal duping. She also offers the reader insight into how to create a great con by insisting that lies can be used, brick by brick, to create a false truth that everyone seems to follow. Fascinating throughout and definitely perplexing when put in those terms.

I do enjoy a mix in my reading, usually to keep me on my toes and my brain sharpened to some of the non-fiction topics of the day. Aja Raden did a masterful job presenting this piece as being one that is not only relevant, but also highly intriguing. The psychology, sociology, and plain history that emerges from the pages of this book are not over simplified, but used effectively to keep the reader learning at every page turn. With a strong narrative, peppered with some saltiness to lighten the mood, Raden offers a wonderfully relatable piece that will keep the rewards enthused and laughing in equal measure. Lies have a way of pulling people in, wanting to see where they were duped and how others fell for something so simplistic (in hindsight). Raden does this perfectly and kept me wanting to know more. Quite the book, sure to pique the interest of many. My only question...how much of it was true?!

Kudos, Madam Raden, for a great piece. You had me hooked from the opening pages and I learned more than I thought I could on one (vast) topic. I cannot wait to get my hands on your other book, which I hope is just as informative.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Aja Raden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I, mean, thought it was pretty good.

[Briar's Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit by Aja Raden is one of the most interesting and eye opening books I've ever read, and honestly... It was barrels of fun!

Aja Raden is very obviously a researcher at heart. And to top it off, an educator. Aja is able to put together such insightful and interesting thoughts and facts about why we lie and how it became so common in our everyday lies. There is decades upon decades of information and different lies and tricks society has participated in, and it's all presented in an easy format.

Each section of this book highlights various types of lies and how we've experienced the various types of cons. From white lies, to the shell game, mass deception, and "fake news" - you've got an expansive list that covers almost every variation of deception and lack of honesty. From the tiniest lies, to the biggest, this book has you covered in all the best ways.

There's historical facts in this book and also incredible examples. Snake oil was once a true cure, but now is known for being a placebo/lie due to how the honest option was twisted and manipulated by greedy salesmen. This book truly was a gem and opened my eyes. The Truth About Lies was fun and easy to read, educational, and just down right interesting. I was binge reading this book and could hardly put it down.

I highly recommend this book if you like easy to read non-fiction, want to learn something new, or just enjoy a dip into the history of a specific topic.

Five out of five stars!

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

[Donna Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Sara at St. Martin’s Press for my copy of this book.

The Truth About Lies seeks to explain why we, as humans, fall for lies, hoaxes, and the like. The author uses historical examples of successful lies from small (the shell game) to huge (the housing bubble) to illustrate our vulnerability. She attempts to break down our responses to lies in psychological and sociological terms. You may think this book sounds too serious, but the author maintains a snarky sense of humor throughout the book.

The sense of humor used in the book WAS really funny. The use of footnotes to add humorous asides to stories really did amuse me. I’m just not sure I was able to take the author, or her subject, seriously. In addition, frequent use of “f***” as a verb, adverb, and adjective detracted from the credibility of the book. The inclusion of political perspective didn’t help.

An interesting topic and an easy, enjoyable writing style kept my interest. I was also surprised by several good points (such as the point about money). If you like social insight that isn’t dry and boring, you may want to give this book a look.

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, Aja Raden needs a 12 star rating system. Propelled by what she shared with us in Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World, she now takes a cliff dive into the world of hoaxes, schemes and charming scalliwags. And cons. Long cons, short cons, skinny cons, cons that climb on rocks.

You will be amazed to discover that the label Snake Oil salesman began with a guy who sold snake oil.

We are treated to a longer look at the diamond industry and those 2 women at NW Ayers who lied their butts off for DeBeers diamonds, creating rarity, need and big moolah out of thin air for decades. I still hope they got paid a bunch of money, but I still doubt it.

The truth is not necessarily true, and we all agree to that, because otherwise our monetary system would fall flat on its Long Con ass. We learn our brain is itself a con artist (it lies to you all the time), and needs to be, so we can walk around on the planet without going bonkers questioning everything we see, hear or touch.

You get the fact that your mother punished you for lying, but in fact - because she is human - she lied, too. (So you can stop winding yourself up trying to never lie.) Humans require lies to continue on the top of the food chain, and for society to function in whatever way society functions.

I now don't have to think of my siblings who got the day of John F. Kennedy's funeral all wrong as people who just were not paying attention. 5 people - 5 different rememberings. Because none of them used my brain for processing - each has their own version. Also true.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great. Googly. Moogly. What a book.
We are all hardwired to lie. Who knew? And apparently, we are all hardwired to believe a lie [or of a certain perception], no matter what it might be [think the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast].

Filled with facts and told with often biting humor, the author tackles a difficult subject and breaks down just how all of this affects all of us. But don't take my word for it - go and read. And be in awe as I am of just how mind-blowing this subject is.

Thank you to NetGalley, Aja Raden, and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

** SIDE NOTE: The author narrates this book, and I really think that helped this book come alive for me. To hear the snarky sarcasm and humor really put things into perspective and made this subject even easier to digest. I HIGHLY recommend listening to this book!!

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

i want to rewatch all my favorite documentaries now with this book open on my lap so I can identify all the different lies, schemes, and scams

[MaureenMcBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Truth About Lies by Aja Raden

Aja Raden’s book is well-timed, with election conspiracy theories still echoing across the country. As frustrated partisans glare at each other across the divide, Raden steps in to explain how people can believe such different truths and refuse to budge despite the facts compiled to move them.

The truth is, Raden says, we can’t handle the truth. She combines history and behavioral science to delightful effect to show us that lying is simply part of the human condition. So is believing lies -- the bigger the lie, the better. Raden travels through time to show the patterns repeating: how Rasputin conned a desperate tsarina in the early 20th Century and how Bernie Madoff built a better Ponzi scheme a hundred years later. No matter how much more sophisticated we get, the cons keep coming.

“Whether they’re the lies we tell each other or the subtler and more complicated lies we tell ourselves, deceit and belief are two halves of one whole,” Raden says. “Society cannot function without both.”

Her study of “the evolution of deceit” covers politics, religion, business and medicine. Jaw-dropping examples lay out the Big Lie, the Long Con and more ways to exploit our healthy default of believing what people tell us. Yes, there will be snake oil. The results can be funny -- Orson Welles’ Martian hoax, for example -- until they’re not. Readers likely will think of the deadly assault on the Capitol built on false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. This book is too new to get into that, but Raden does make a reference to President Trump and his one-time “guru” Steve Bannon to show how the rich and powerful can figure in.

It’s serious stuff, but Raden’s humor makes even the bitterest pills palatable. Take Bitcoin, an example of a financial instrument as tempting as it is impossible to quantify. “Sure, you can use it to buy things, in certain venues,” she says, “though the same is true of live chickens.”

In Raden’s sure hands, the madness of the mortgage meltdown becomes more understandable, and art masterpieces less so. The takeaway is: There are facts, there are lies and they are not opposites. A lie can become your truth. And beware, beware the conventional wisdom.

In “The Truth About Lies,” Raden joins the ranks of gifted commentators such as Dan Ariely (“Predictably Irrational”), Malcolm Gladwell (“Talking to Strangers”) and Shankar Vedantum (“Hidden Brain”), who help us make sense of our senseless behavior. She lays out lots to ponder here, promising her book a long shelf life.

“When you fall for lies, as you have, as you will again, it doesn’t mean you’re stupid or there’s something wrong with you,” she reassures. “Quite the contrary, it means that everything is working exactly the way it’s designed to.”

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wore out a highlighter on this one.

I read and listen to a ton of content covering critical thinking, skepticism, myths, and cons. So I was concerned this book would be a lot of stuff I've already come across. I was pleasantly surprised, repeatedly, by stories of cons and lies I had never heard of. The writing is clear, with a light irreverent tone. The book's structure, a chapter on each of the nine types of lies, is brilliant and makes for fun reading. My favorite moments are when the author philosophizes on the human condition. Why we need lies. Truth vs fact. How we construct reality. My only quibble would be the findings of some psychology experiments are given too much weight. I can now better discover and avoid the lies around me, and I also have a good idea for a new con if I ever have to go to the Dark Side.

This isn't just another science book. It is more. One I'd be happy to read again.


"Its one thing to make up a girlfriend who lives in Canada. But who makes up Canada?"

"Incompetence is a powerful motive to fear the future."

"You never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out." - Warren Buffett

"The Truth about lies is that they're not only contagious-they're almost impossible to cure."

"Some lies become so necessary that we not only avoid confronting them but actively work to securitize them against exposure. The lie has become not merely too big but, in fact, too real to fail."


Things I learned: The mosquito coast is named after the Miskito Amerindians not the insect. Soapy Smith ran a telegraph to nowhere in Alaska profitably, for a year! The placebo effect doesn't work on Alzheimer's patients. Without the ability to remember the past or anticipate the future, priming doesn't work. Coca-Cola removed the cocaine from their soda because of a backlash when Black people were able to buy it. Michelangelo gained fame as a forger. Years before the "War of the World" radio program; England had a similar panic inducing fake broadcast about a revolution in London.

[Matt Kelland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given a review copy by the publisher.
I will admit, I was hesitant to read this. After the last few years of being bombarded by "fake news" and social media propaganda, the constant daily list of lies from You-Know-Who, and the growing acceptance of the "post-truth society", I really didn't want to think about this topic. Can't we just try being honest with each other?
Well, as it turns out, no. We're hard-wired, almost literally from birth, to deceive each other. The only questions are how much we're going to do it and whether we're going to get caught. (Short answers, more than we like to admit, and, eventually, yes, but it it may not matter.)
Raden delves into the different types of deceit, from the Big Lie, the Shell Game, and the Bait and Switch to the Long Con. She goes from small-scale grifters to massive civilization-wide cons such as the value of diamonds or the mortgage market, and even religion. She doesn't just tell stories, though, she addresses philosophical questions like what it takes for a lie to be accepted as fact, or why we refuse to accept it when we're told we've been lied to. (And although Raden mostly stays away from contemporary politics, the implications for how we're going to rebuild our world are horrifying.)
What really hooked me was the easy-going and conversational writing style. It was fun to read, and I read most of the book in one sitting. (Though if you're offended by f-bombs, you should probably stay clear of this - personally, I like them, because they made the writing feel authentic.) It was a great mixture of stories, psychology and philosophy, combining humor and shock with fascinating information.
If you enjoy shows like Hustle or Lupin, you'll enjoy this book.

[Tilly Wark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The truth is I would be lying if I said this book kept my interest.

The Truth About Lies had an interesting premise, however, I didn't much care for the author's execution. She would start off on a story that was genuinely interesting, and then have a few "squirrel" moments where she'd go off on a side tangent about a handful of other things, and then come back to the story she started with. That was a tad irksome. There were also quips and asides aplenty- some added value to the chapter, but many didn't, which was also annoying.

About halfway through the book I started to become bored. I found myself trying not to fall asleep on many occasions, and the last third of this book was an absolute slog to get through. I found that there started to be repetition, and that it wasn't keeping me engaged. Perhaps if there was less repetition, and fewer "squirrel" moments, I would have enjoyed this more. It's a shame, really. I was genuinely intrigued by the prospect of this book. It just failed to deliver for me (meanwhile my mum gave it a 5-star rating... to each her own).

On the list of subjects I did like in this book: the fake country, the fake mine, and the statement "who would lie about Canada?".

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Truth About Lies.

This was a fascinating, informative (sometimes hilarious) read about dishonesty, deceit, and the illusion of honesty.

Lying is essential to the human species. We lie because we can. We lie to survive.

We lie to deceive. We lie to achieve. We lie to succeed.

But, why do we lie? How do people fall for it?

The author breaks it down for the readers, the psychological and behavioral and cognitive factors behind why we lie, how so many people are suckers and get suckered in, and why con games are an enduring part of capitalism.

The writing is great; straightforward, blunt, no fancy words, some cussing which adds levity with a hint of dark humor to the topic.

I highly recommend this book.

It might not make you smarter, but it might prevent you from falling for a business proposition that sounds just a tad bit too good to be true.

[Viktor Lototskyi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great non-fiction, a mix of psychology talking about truth-lie biases and stories on how humanity was deceived by those.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grabbed this because I absolutely LOVED Raden's first book, Stoned. And while I did enjoy what I read of this one, it just didn't grab me in the same way. I think most of that is due to the fact that I had already heard a lot of the stories Raden brings up in this one, and was aware of a lot of the content being presented. So while it's all definitely very interesting, it's just stuff I have already heard before. I do recommend it if you enjoy her writing and are curious about the history of cons, frauds, etc. and it's not something you've looked into before. It also presents the idea of "truth" as being just what we all accept as being reality and explains the theory much better than I ever could.

A worthwhile read and an interesting topic, just not something that caught my attention as strongly as her other work has.

[Lisa Konet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt some of this book was quite compelling. I liked how to the author divided the book and then broke down segment and went in depth with each. The author obviously cares about honesty and lies in the larger picture. However, I really did not learn anything new or mind blowing and there was not much of a bibliography. Seriously?! Like 70% of the book was your own original thoughts and observations? Plagiarism, anyone? Maybe that is part of "the lies."

Just ok for me and still recommended for other people into psychology and truth/lies.

Thanks to Netgalley, Aja Raden and St Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 5/11/21

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read a pop psychology book, but I used to devour them. This book reminded me of those classics like Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt. The Truth About Lies explores some of the biggest cons in history and in our everyday lives, from MLM schemes to art forgeries.

Raden also shares sharp insights into the necessity of lies, given that our collective intelligence is founded on trust (or "honesty bias," where we tend to believe things we're told as being true). This gives us an evolutionary edge because we can pass down knowledge through generations without needing to spend time confirming facts ourselves. She notes that this is also why we're so easily deceived. Most of the time, we believe lies because they feed beliefs we desperately want to believe. Plus, the worth of anything, from Bitcoin to diamonds and money itself, is all based on unspoken social contracts.

Overall, I loved the variety of examples, and although the colloquial, conspiratorial writing style was a bit cheesy at times, it entertained me. Better to have a book that tries too hard to be "come hither" than one that is dry as an overbaked biscuit. I agreed with most of Raden's points, and I appreciated that she didn't hold any punches when it came to pointing out the deceit involved with religious or political beliefs.

One problem, though, with me being such an avid pop psychology reader and having a BA in psychology is that I've heard most of these stories and theories before. So, when the author describes ideas as if to someone who's never heard of them, it makes me feel like the audience for this book is people who have never read about psychology before. That's understandable, given an author would rather define all the terms for new readers than leave them confused, but it ultimately makes the book feel like a beginner's guide when I prefer to go beyond the basics I've heard a dozen times before in classes and other books.

However, the book opens with a perfect example, focusing on Gregor MacGregor and his scheme of inventing the fictional colony Poyais in the early nineteenth century. The whole story is wild and fascinating. I also particularly enjoyed the parts about Rasputin as well as Raden's takedown of the diamond industry. The one example I was skeptical of was the War of the Worlds radio drama that supposedly incited real violence. I had heard that story before, but I had later heard that it was debunked, with the panic being called a "myth" by both NPR and Slate. But as Raden says, there are always multiple versions of the truth. https://slate.com/culture/2013/10/ors...

The publisher offered me a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. A family member bought the audiobook, so I ended up listening to that instead, which was read by the author (probably one of the best author readings of their own book I've come across, and I've listened to a lot of them). Raden's voice and inflections were a great fit for the sensational tone of the book.

This is definitely a book I would recommend to readers who are new to the pop psychology genre and want a fun entry point.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book overall. Parts of it were a little disheartening - in the beginning she talks about how everyone lies because it's just part of the evolutionary process where creatures need to use any and all measures that could give them an advantage over others. Including lying.

I enjoyed learning about all the cons and the different types. I actually wish she had gone more in depth. I feel like there were more and shorter stories overall compared to her last book. I preferred diving super deep into a scenario that I got lost in it. The way this book was written (not quite snippets, but not a long drawn out story either) made all the information a little bit harder to remember. Probably because there are just so many - thanks a lot con men.

I really liked learning about the psychology behind what makes the cons successful. Things like cognitive dissonance, honesty bias, inattentional blindness, and a ton of others. Basically ways to psychologically manipulate people based on the limitations of our minds. Probably a good thing for us moral (non con artists) people to know just so we can avoid falling prey to it.

Some parts were astonishing, like how the general public believes something so thoroughly that it kind of turns a farce into a fact (like the one where we all believe or did believe that diamonds are rare - still reeling over that fact, life was better before I found out).
The book was interesting and enlightening through and through so I definitely recommend it.

[Michał · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75/5

Moja wiedza teoretyczna na temat kłamstw poszerzyła się trochę, ale zdecydowanie nie wystarczająco. Tytuł, opis, wszystko sugeruje że będzie to książka która skupia się na mechanizmach kłamstwa i opisuje sposób ich działania z perspektywy psychologicznej/socjologicznej. jednak tego tu nie znajdujemy. Można przeczytać natomiast o wielu bardzo ciekawych historiach z oszustwem w roli głównej.
To właśnie na opowiadaniu tych historii opiera się cała treść. Sama autorka w podziękowaniach pisze: "jedna z osób powiedziała: 'Chcę, żeby ktoś napisał książkę o słynnych oszustwach'. Tak zrobiłam .....", też bym chciał przeczytać taką książkę. Po części już to zrobiłem, jak dla mnie wszystkie próby opisania sposobu działania kłamstw były zbędne, jakbym tylko zostawić te historie, zmienić opis książki - to ocenia była by przynajmniej 4.25/5 gwiazdek.

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild and entertaining truth about lies! My favorite is the long con that is the diamond engagement ring.

I'm an Aja Raden fan. I was so thrilled to discover she narrated the audiobook that I must listen to it immediately! I love her voice and how she adds color a drama to the storytelling with her reading. Love it loveit love it🥰

[Sarah Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit

Full review found here: https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/...

Aja Raden | St. Martin’s Press, 2021 | 320 pages, Hardcover
Field Detail
Author Aja Raden
Full Title The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit
Publisher St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date May 11, 2021
Format Reviewed Kindle
Pages 320
ISBN 9781250272027
Language English
Community Rating 4.05/5 (433 ratings, 94 reviews)
User Personal Rating 4.3/5
Objective Criteria Mean 3.9/5

Summary Overview

Aja Raden’s The Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit is a daring, wide-ranging, and frequently exhilarating taxonomy of deception—one that refuses to stay within the comfortable boundaries of any single discipline and is better and more intellectually generative for that refusal. Raden, a scientist, jeweler, and New York Times bestselling author previously known for Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World (2015), brings to this subject the same restless interdisciplinary intelligence, the same gift for narrative propulsion through historical anecdote, and the same willingness to pursue a genuinely counterintuitive thesis wherever it leads—including into territory that will unsettle readers who came expecting a simpler, more reassuring account of lies and the people who tell them.



The book’s central provocation is elegant and genuinely useful: we spend an enormous amount of intellectual and emotional energy asking why we believe lies, but almost none asking why we believe the truth. Raden’s argument—developed across a sequence of chapters that move fluidly between evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, historical fraud, political propaganda, con artistry, and philosophy of knowledge—is that belief itself, rather than deception, is the phenomenon that most needs explaining. Lies, in Raden’s account, do not work because they are cleverly constructed imitations of truth; they work because the cognitive architecture that makes us capable of believing anything at all is structurally indifferent to the distinction between true and false information. This is a claim with significant implications—epistemological, political, and ethical—and Raden pursues those implications with characteristic wit and without flinching from their more disquieting dimensions.



The result is a book that is simultaneously a highly entertaining popular history of deception in its many forms—pyramid schemes, art forgery, shell games, political propaganda, long cons, hoaxes, and the full spectrum of social and interpersonal deceit—and a serious, if necessarily compressed, engagement with foundational questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, and belief. Raden’s framing question in The Truth About Lies—“What makes a thing real?”—deliberately echoes the question she posed in Stoned—“What makes a thing valuable?”—and the parallel is instructive: in both books, her deepest interest is in the social, psychological, and cognitive mechanisms by which human beings construct and collectively sustain the categories through which they organize their experience, whether those categories concern monetary value, aesthetic worth, or epistemic truth.
Formal Review

The Truth About Lies announces its ambitions in its subtitle—The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit—and delivers on them with more consistency and depth than is common in popular nonfiction books that promise to overturn conventional wisdom about familiar human phenomena. Raden is a formidably capable writer, and her prose combines the accessibility and narrative momentum essential to the popular nonfiction form with a conceptual precision and genuine argumentative seriousness that elevate the book well above the category of mere entertainment. This is popular intellectual nonfiction working at a high level of both forms simultaneously—entertaining and rigorous, accessible and substantively challenging—and readers who come to it with appetite for both dimensions will find them generously satisfied.



The book is structured as what Raden herself describes as a “taxonomy of lies and liars”—a taxonomic ambition that is both the book’s organizing principle and its most significant structural challenge. The taxonomic approach serves the material well in its early chapters, where Raden moves systematically through the landscape of deception with evident organizational control, establishing the conceptual distinctions—between lying and misleading, between self-deception and other-deception, between individual fraud and collective belief—that will underpin the more complex arguments that follow. The historical case studies through which these distinctions are illustrated are selected with skill and narrated with evident relish: Raden is a natural storyteller, and her accounts of celebrated cons, forgeries, and hoaxes have the vividness and propulsive energy of good fiction while carrying the intellectual weight of genuine historical and psychological analysis.



The evolutionary framework that grounds the book’s central argument—that deception is not a pathological deviation from an otherwise truth-oriented cognitive system but rather a fundamental feature of the cognitive and social architecture that has enabled human beings to cooperate, form communities, and construct the shared symbolic worlds that constitute culture—is developed with care and credited appropriately to the research traditions from which it draws. Raden’s engagement with the evolutionary psychology and behavioral economics literature is substantive rather than decorative, and she avoids the reductive oversimplifications that can afflict popular nonfiction’s engagement with these fields. The argument that the same cognitive tendencies—toward pattern recognition, narrative coherence, social conformity, and the minimization of cognitive dissonance—that make us vulnerable to deception are also the foundations of our most distinctively human capacities for culture, language, and collective meaning-making is both scientifically plausible and philosophically rich, and Raden develops it with the nuance it deserves.



Where the book is at its most intellectually adventurous—and, correspondingly, at its most uneven—is in its final third, where Raden extends her taxonomy of individual and interpersonal deception outward toward the political and collective dimensions of mass belief, propaganda, and the epistemological conditions of contemporary public life. This extension is the most urgent and topically relevant dimension of the book, and it is clearly the dimension toward which the earlier taxonomic and analytical groundwork has been building. The argument that the same mechanisms that make individuals vulnerable to con artists and fraudsters also make populations vulnerable to propaganda and political manipulation—and that the distinction between a political lie and a political truth may be operationally less significant than commonly assumed, given the structural indifference of belief itself to veracity—will be bracing for many readers and will strike some as overly deflationary of the normative distinction between truth and falsehood that most ethical and political frameworks depend upon.



Raden is aware of this potential objection and addresses it explicitly, though some readers will feel her response is more intellectually provocative than normatively reassuring. This is, ultimately, a feature rather than a flaw of the book’s intellectual character: The Truth About Lies is not a book designed to make its readers comfortable or to leave the categories they brought to it undisturbed. Raden’s explicit goal is epistemological disruption—she wants to change what her readers think they know about knowledge itself—and she achieves this goal more consistently and more rigorously than most popular nonfiction books that make similarly ambitious claims.
Strengths

Prose Quality and Narrative Voice: Raden’s voice is one of the most distinctive and pleasurable in contemporary popular nonfiction—sharp, ironic, warm, and intellectually confident without tipping into arrogance. Her wit is genuinely funny rather than merely clever, and it serves the material rather than decorating it. The book is a pleasure to read at the sentence level in a way that is rare in intellectually serious nonfiction.

Historical Case Material: The book’s historical examples—ranging from Charles Ponzi’s original scheme to the art forgery of Han van Meegeren, from the Fox Sisters’ nineteenth-century spiritualist hoax to the mechanics of modern political propaganda—are selected with evident historiographical skill and narrated with the kind of concrete, behavioral specificity that transforms historical anecdote from mere illustration into genuine analytic evidence.

Conceptual Architecture: Despite the book’s considerable range and its movement across multiple disciplines, it maintains a coherent conceptual architecture. The core distinction between the mechanics of deception and the mechanics of belief—and the argument that the latter is the more fundamental explanatory target—is established clearly and sustained throughout.

Interdisciplinary Integration: Raden’s integration of evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, philosophy of mind, and political theory is accomplished with more sophistication and intellectual honesty than is the norm in popular interdisciplinary nonfiction. She does not merely borrow the prestige of scientific and philosophical frameworks—she engages with them substantively enough to generate original conceptual syntheses.

Topical Urgency: The book’s engagement with propaganda, mass belief, and the epistemological conditions of contemporary political life gives it a topical urgency and relevance that anchors its more abstract philosophical arguments in the living concerns of its readership.
Limitations

Depth Versus Breadth Tension: The book’s taxonomic ambitions and its wide disciplinary range occasionally produce moments where the treatment of complex topics feels compressed to the point of underdevelopment. The philosophical dimensions in particular—the engagement with questions of epistemology and the nature of reality that Raden’s central question (“What makes a thing real?”) invites—sometimes feel as though they have been gestured at rather than fully developed.

Evidential Citation Practice: Though the book is “buttressed by history, psychology, and science,” the popular nonfiction format imposes certain limitations on the explicitness with which sources are cited and evidence is marshaled. Readers with academic backgrounds in the relevant fields will occasionally note moments where claims would benefit from more explicit evidential grounding, and the book’s notes and bibliography, while present, are less comprehensive than a scholarly treatment of the same material would require.

Normative Ambiguity: The book’s most radical epistemological claims—particularly the suggestion that the distinction between true and false belief may be less operationally significant than commonly assumed—are not consistently accompanied by the normative guidance needed to prevent misreading. Raden clearly does not intend to advocate for relativism or to undermine the practical and ethical importance of truth-seeking, but some readers may find her framing makes this position somewhat harder than it needs to be to hold in view.

Structural Unevenness in Final Third: The book’s movement from individual and interpersonal deception to collective and political deception, while intellectually justified and thematically essential, is executed with somewhat less structural control than the earlier chapters. The taxonomic clarity of the book’s first two-thirds gives way to a more essayistic and associative mode in the final section, which some readers will find liberating and others will find insufficiently rigorous.
Recommended Companion Reading

Readers wishing to extend their engagement with the themes and arguments of The Truth About Lies will find the following works productive companions: Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (revised ed., 2021, Harper Business), for its foundational account of the psychological mechanisms of compliance and persuasion; Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011, Farrar, Straus and Giroux), for the dual-process cognitive framework that underpins much of Raden’s account of belief formation; Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951, Schocken Books) and “Truth and Politics” (1967, The New Yorker), for the most rigorous philosophical treatment of the political dimensions of lying and mass deception; Maria Konnikova’s The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It Every Time (2016, Viking), as a closely parallel popular nonfiction treatment of con artistry and the psychology of being deceived; Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny (2017, Tim Duggan Books) and The Road to Unfreedom (2018, Tim Duggan Books), for the contemporary political dimensions of the relationship between propaganda and democratic epistemology; and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things (2002, Holt Paperbacks), as a complementary account of motivated reasoning and the social psychology of belief.
Extended Critical Discussion

I. The Central Inversion—Diagnosing Belief Rather Than Deception

The most intellectually productive move in The Truth About Lies is also the most counterintuitive: Raden’s insistence on reorienting the analytical gaze from the lie to the belief. Popular treatments of deception—and there have been a great many of them, particularly in the behavioral economics and popular psychology genres that have flourished over the last two decades—almost universally take the perspective of the deceived, asking how lies are constructed and delivered effectively enough to overcome what is assumed to be a basically truth-oriented cognitive default. Raden’s inversion of this frame—asking not how lies breach our defenses against deception but rather what the architecture of belief itself looks like from the inside, and whether that architecture is equipped to discriminate between true and false information at all—is a move of genuine intellectual originality and considerable analytical power.



The force of this inversion is clearest in Raden’s treatment of what cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists call “the illusion of explanatory depth”—the well-documented human tendency to believe we understand things far more completely and accurately than we actually do—and in her related accounts of confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and the social dimensions of belief formation and maintenance. The argument that our beliefs are far more determined by social context, narrative coherence, and the psychological need for a stable and predictable world than by any direct engagement with evidence is not new—it has been developed with great rigor in the academic literatures of cognitive psychology and social epistemology—but Raden synthesizes this research and presents it through historical narrative with a clarity and vividness that makes it genuinely accessible to a broad readership without sacrificing its essential conceptual force.



II. The Evolutionary Account—Strengths and Complications

The evolutionary framework Raden uses to anchor her account of deception deserves careful attention because it is doing significant conceptual work in the book’s overall argument. The claim that deception is evolutionarily adaptive—that the capacity to deceive and to be deceived are both preserved by natural selection because they serve important functions in the social ecologies of highly cooperative species like Homo sapiens—is well-supported in the evolutionary biology and comparative ethology literature, and Raden engages with it competently. The extension of this framework to explain not only individual deceptive behavior but the larger social and cultural phenomena of mass belief, propaganda, and collective self-deception is more speculative and more philosophically complex, however, and some readers will want a more explicit acknowledgment of the inferential gap between the evolutionary baseline and its cultural and political extrapolations.



This is not a fatal weakness—popular nonfiction necessarily works with inferential gaps that scholarly monographs would spend entire chapters negotiating—but it is worth noting as a limitation that more careful readers will observe. The strongest version of Raden’s evolutionary argument is the one that remains closest to the individual cognitive level: the claim that specific cognitive tendencies, selected for in evolutionary environments where rapid social assessment and group conformity were adaptive, now predispose us to systematic patterns of error in complex modern environments is well-evidenced and compelling. The weaker version—the claim that these same tendencies explain the specific mechanics of twentieth-century totalitarian propaganda or twenty-first-century social media misinformation—is plausible but requires a great deal more theoretical mediation than the book consistently provides.



III. The Historical Cases—Selection, Narrative, and Evidential Function

The book’s historical case studies are its most immediately pleasurable dimension and also its most analytically productive, when they are functioning at their best. Raden’s selections are distinguished by their variety across the typological spectrum of deception—from the intimate interpersonal to the massive and institutional—and by the narrative skill with which she brings them to life. The best cases are those in which the historical particularity of the deception is most fully rendered, because it is in those particulars—the specific psychological and social conditions that made the mark vulnerable, the specific cognitive and emotional mechanisms the con exploited, the specific moment of revelation and its aftermath—that the book’s theoretical arguments achieve their fullest evidential grounding and their most convincing demonstrative force.


Full review found here: https://prairiefoxreads.blogspot.com/...

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily provocative. Aja Raden writes with stunning clarity and command; the scope of her knowledge is breathtaking; she is convincing, captivating and ridiculously funny and refreshingly irreverent, and has thoroughly tapped into the zeitgeist. It's so brilliant and memorable that you'll want to highlight every paragraph. This is a must-read.

[Michael Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, and unsettling.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truth is an act of concensus.p254

This myth - that there is only truth, singular and immutable- is actually a lie about the truth.p250

It turns out it's actually easier to convince someone...to believe a lie than it is to convince that person that they've been lied to p124

There are no new lies, only new liars. P132

This is a remarkable book in many ways and I would be lying if I said that none of it was a surprise. Aja Radan starts with the premise that lying isn't just something that other people do, especially those devious, nasty, manipulative people that would take advantage of anyone credulous enough to believe them.

We all lie, all the time - including you. P7

It's tempting to think that we're doing something more complex or meaningful than an insect, but we are not. P51

AJ goes on to reassure us that it's not entirely our fault; a certain amount of our lying ways are due to the way we are hardwired for self- preservation. From cognitive biases and confirmation biases to the little white lie meant to smooth over awkward moments, which may be a good thing but in fact, lies are mostly intended to deceive and that is not so good for anybody.

There are so many ways to lie, and AJ covers most of them, from pyramid schemes, forgery and shell games oh my! to various hoaxes that in retrospect seem quite unbelievable.

it's all about the story you choose p26
...lies we agree to make real. P271

4/5 for GR
6/7

[Matthew J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I received a digital ARC version of this book).
A fascinating and sometimes depressing look at lies. From biological imperatives (survival features like camouflage & mimicry) to ubiquitous pyramid schemes (like MLMs, the stock market & religion) to con jobs and forgeries, Raden looks at how we lie, why we lie, what it even means to lie and how it is an inherent element of our lives without which we would not survive, much less thrive. Multiple stories from history up to the present explore the nature of lies and truth. She looks at how we're taken in by things, and how our ability to be taken in is the very same ability that allows us to function and carry on civilization. She looks at how our brain works by fudging perception because it can't process everything all the time, so it just cheats, and how sleight of hand exploits that cheat. Interesting characters, scoundrels and entrepreneurs, hucksters and heroes populate the book, many of whom deserve their own book (many of whom have their own books).
There's lots of good stuff in here, and it will make you look at things a bit more critically. Will you still fall for lies? Yes. It's how we're built. But maybe you can avoid the most destructive...or try to extract yourself from the most toxic lies you're already wrapped in.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humans love to be lied to. Well, we don’t like the consequences of lies, but that doesn’t seem to slow us down on stumbling into cons throughout the centuries. Raden takes us through a laugh out loud history of the con. And while the players may change, the outcomes stay exactly the same.

Structured into nine sections, Raden explores everything from the Big Lies, such as making up a country, pyramid schemes and the 2008 financial crisis, to illusions, shell games, and counterfeit masterpieces. (Fun fact of today, 20-30% of the art in every museum is actually counterfeit.)

What takes these lessons beyond the history books is Raden’s humor and psychological grounding. She explains how our trusting nature as humans allowed us to become the world dominating species we are today - due to collective intelligence. She discusses biases, the need for confirmation, and even lapses of memory - all which prime us to be conned.

I loved how she delved into what distinguishes a fact from truth, and how our perception isn’t as grounded as we’d want to believe. For anyone looking to understand lying, social psychology, and a slice of human nature - you can find no better guide.

[Greg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was underwhelmed by this book. The concept is intriguing and there were a few nuggets of historical examples that were interesting. However, the style was distracting. I felt the manner (and expletives) of writing detracted from the underlying points of the stories. To be clear, I can be as foul-mouthed as they come, but the inclusion of such in this writing left me feeling like I was reading the ramblings of an "internet Karen", almost instantly removing any credibility the author may actually have.

[Nita · Rating 4 out of 5]

*The Truth About Lies - A taxonomy of Deceit, hoaxes and cons*

*Author: Aja Raden, California* - An experienced jeweler, trained scientist, and well-read historian.
*Genre: Non fiction*
*Moods: Funny✓ Informative✓*
*Pace: Medium✓*

*We are born liars!* So let's get that out of the way before we get any further.

Fibbing, prevaricating, stretching the truth, white lies, of omission, of commission. Lying is so pervasive that we have countless words for it. But have you ever considered why you believed a lie you were told?

The Truth About Lies is buttressed by a winning mixture of history, psychology, and science. With simple prose and insightful research, Aja Raden take us on a ride of Epiphany to show how truth and lies are inextricably intertwined at many levels and how it has woven its way into our moral fabric.

The author segregate lies into three categories and attempts to show that some lies have turned to accepted truths, though many are oblivious to the fact.

1) *The Lies We Tell Each Other*
2) *The Lies We Tell Ourselves*
3) *The Lies We All Agree to Believe*

-Why anyone still plays a shell game and gambles when they know the house is stacked against them.
-Goldbricking and the misleading nature of "facts"
-Why faith and fraud are so closely connected
-Hoaxes, hysteria and the madness of crowds
-Why we're all probably part of a pyramid scheme
-How the truth can sometimes sound like a lie
-the origins of ‘snake oil salesman’ and how the masses are duped into trusting it due to the placebo effect of it on them.
-How and why people believe in large-scale cons, explaining that the extravagance is too large to trick people, so it must be true.
-The myth of Singular truths: the shroud of Turin and the painting of *Many Lisas* , oops Mona Lisa 😝!
-The truth about Diamonds and it's retroactive realities.
-It further extrapolates and hashes out on the cons of Televangelism.
-Raden shows how there are certain soapboxes that have been used to push an idea to the masses, all in the hopes of spreading a falsehood that is so vast that it seems real.
-She also offers insights into how to create a great con by stating that the lies can be used, brick by brick, to create a false truth that everyone seems to follow.

Quite an insightful read! Sure to pique interest of many.

*Cons* : On contrary to the popular opinion, I would be lying if I said this book kept my interest throughout!

The book had an interesting premise, however, I didn't care much for the author's execution even though it had a jocular undertone throughout to keep me from falling off the tracks.

There were repetitions and I found it quite circuitous at times. Perhaps if there were less repetitions and fewer "squirrel" moments, I would have enjoyed this much more.

*Quote of interest:* "Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote that “everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth,” but he may have seriously discounted the fact that everything that makes up the truth has already been added to the truth."

*Self rating:*
Writing style: *3.8/5*
Research and Information: *5/5*

Now my question to you - *How much of my review do you think is actually true ?* 😉

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed the book as it explores notions of truth and lies. She offers many interesting historical events to illustrate the many types of lies and deception humans engage in. She takes a very broad definition of lying - in evolution both predators and prey have developed sometimes elaborate means to deceive each other and so have many species in their mating games, so 'lying' is part of nature. Because of human intellect and use of language, humans have been able to create many new ways to deceive each other and she explores these in interesting ways. Our brains have evolved to process information quickly which has helped make humans quite successful in spreading across the planet. Our brains don't have to deal with everything by personal trial and error for we can learn lesson that we apply to many new and varied situations. We have culture which creates social memory which helps us negotiate our world and relationships even quicker. But it is this trait - the ability to understand the world and new situations which is also a certain weakness which is what liars and frauds take advantage of. Many common 'magic' tricks are really slight of hand which takes advantage of how our brains anticipate things so we miss what is in front of us because our brains are expecting something else. This is the basis of many types of crimes involving deception. But I think Raden at times creates her own con when she CONfuses the difference between lies and truth in social situations. She points out that money has no 'real' value and is really a social CONstruct. We socially agree that money has value and this speeds up many of our transactions (which is just humans using their brains). Counterfeiters create fake money, but Raden says as long as we continue to use their $100 bills as real money we are just following one 'lie' or another (for real money has no value except what we give it). So she concludes all money is a lie because it isn't based in things of actual value (like gold). But for me even gold only has the value we socially construct for it. Money is a social CONvienience and is not a lie. Counterfeit money is a lie because it isn't part of the social construct and social trust we need to function as a society. Counterfeit aims to deceive whereas real money does not. I think she broadens out the definition of a lie so much as to empty it of value and thus creates her own lie.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full Disclosure: Goodreads Giveaway Winner

Really enjoyed this book that defines and gives detailed examples of the major types of lies and how they are used for cons, and social constructs that involve cons. By the middle, I was expecting that at the end the Epilogue would be to the effect that although most of the book was true, there were lies purposely embedded in it to show how easily we as humans fall for them.

I do have to wonder about some of the information provided though, even though it is properly referenced. From all the research I was able to do, the source of the phrase 'Let the cat out of the bag' is probably not either of the usual two theories (pigs/cats or cat-o-ninetails). Neither actually makes sense given the current meaning, but the one that Raden chooses, just doesn't seem plausible because cats don't oink and they aren't the same size/weight/shape as a piglet.

Then there's Avon. I admit, I don't know how it is done now, but the author's description does not reflect the way it was done in the 70s/80s, which based on the description she gave fits the time period referenced. Avon Reps were not allowed to 'just sell to their neighbors', they had territories and could be released if they sold to their neighbors if their territory was NOT their neighborhood. Poaching was not allowed. I totally understand that the business model has changed with tech and the world we live on, but the idea that no one could sell to their neighbor if everyone in the neighborhood was a Rep actually made me question the validity of other research referenced in the book.

[Ashutosh SHUKLA · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is one of a kind, about lies. The biggest, meanest and surprisingly, most believable lies.
The author got me thinking,"If you tell a lie about owning a yatch or an island, another person may or may not believe you, but If you tell him that you own a part of Mars and selling shares to it they are highly likely to believe you" and guess what history is replete with such facts, people selling the Brooklyn Bridge , the Eiffel Tower, multiple times to multiple people.

A conman, one of the many author talks about, said during his proceedings -

"I have never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They may have been respectable, but they were never any good. They wanted something for nothing, I gave them nothing for something"

Probably if I want to make money by owning the Eiffel tower, the conman has a point, doesn't he?

Author explains the psychology behind the top scams throughout the history and leaves you with the facts which startle you. For example, the diamond company deBeers, since 1888, first seeded the fact that Diamonds are rare and Valuable, then Romanticized them by being "forever" by clever advertising. Now a untrue fact repeated overtime appears true to the brain, so people now know that Diamonds are rare and Valuable and EXPENSIVE. If Diamonds are so rare how the hell do so many people have it, and despite NOT being rare why is it so expensive? It is all a lie that the humanity started believing in just like a Red light and green light and Currency notes and the latest one, the bitcoin.