The Truth Detective

About this book

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘fake news’? How do you know if something someone tells you, or something that you read online, is actually true? How do you find the right answer to a difficult question? Can you trust statistics?

Today we are constantly bombarded by information – social media, the news, friends – and sometimes it can be hard to figure out what matters and what the real story. The Truth Detective delves into the ways in which information is used both for and against us, using real-world stories and examples, and introduces a variety of tricks, tools and tactics that can be used to help discern the truth about the world around us and combat fake news.

A brilliant book for developing a world-view and to help young people navigate information overload, it shows you how to look at things in different ways (or through different lenses, as author Tim Harford puts it), and how to start making sense of news stories and numbers. It is a more advanced read though – unlike a lot of non-fiction written for this age, it’s not really a dip-in-and-out book, but better read chapter by chapter in order to get the best understanding.