Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

What’s the most useful thing you could know about your own life?

In this era-defining book, developed from her groundbreaking Radio 4 essay series, Naomi Alderman turns her boundless curiosity and incisive thinking to a question that affects us all: how do we understand, and navigate, the epoch we’re living through? She calls this epoch the Information Crisis.

The internet has flooded us with more knowledge, opinions, ideas, opportunities, as well as verbal attacks and misinformation, than ever before. It lets us learn more quickly and also spread falsehood more quickly, it brings us together and also divides us in new ways, it is now the lens through which we perceive and understand the world. There is no going back. But we have been here before. In fact, this is humanity’s third information crisis.

The first, the invention of writing 5,000 years ago, and the second, the invention of the printing press 600 years ago, drastically reshaped our perceptions, interactions and mental landscapes in ways that feel acutely familiar. Overwhelmed by information, people become afraid and angry, unsettled and distressed, as well as more knowledgeable, educated and curious. By looking at those previous information crises, both the turmoil and the advances, Alderman asks what we can learn from the past to better understand our present, and prepare for our future.

Drawing on the work of philosophers and historians, Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today explores how new technology opens up new ways of being and helps us chart a way forward (once again), through the turbulent seas of information overload.

An electrifying, thought-provoking exploration of how the digital era is reshaping our world, by bestselling, Women's Prize-winning writer Naomi Alderman

'Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents' JON RONSON

'Alderman helps us see the digital information crisis with fresh eyes, sharing profound wisdom and showing us how to avoid sacrificing our humanity for the sake of being right on the internet' OLIVER BURKEMAN

© Naomi Alderman 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

Naomi Alderman is one of our most surprising and delightful public intellectuals, and this book grapples wonderfully with our current schisms and their historical precedents
Jon Ronson
How fortunate we are to have Naomi Alderman as our companion in these confusing, challenging and dangerous times. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is a serious — and also very funny — history of how we got to this point in the information revolution and a wise guide to navigating our way through it. Essential reading for the 21st century
Erica Wagner
Brisk, insightful, thought-provoking and powerfully empathetic: I started laughing and learning things on the first page and didn't stop until I hit the last one. Don't Burn Anyone at the Stake Today is the product of really deep thinking and a tremendously generous mind. It is the antidote to doom scrolling: a book that made me think in an entirely new way about the age we live in and which will make you excited about our era rather than merely terrified of it
Ian Dunt
The best book about the Internet I've ever read. Changed how I think about human history, the people I fight with on social media AND my own relationship with my phone, which is quite a lot for 150 pages
Jonn Elledge
You know how the best writers pinpoint something you’ve felt for ages but haven’t been able to articulate? This is like that. It’s so good. She should give Radio 4’s next Reith Lectures
Guardian
It's a welcome appeal for nuance and thought in a world increasingly dominated by rapid responses, false assumptions and casual cruelties driven by fear. I loved it - it's wise and compassionate, acknowledging that humans change, and make mistakes, and sometimes even grow beyond them
Joanne Harris
A beautifully written book that alerts us to the necessity of thinking about how we read, what we read and why we read - it will sharpen your perceptions and attach you to the world beyond the word. Keep it by your nearest screen
Robin Ince
Nobody who surveys today's toxic internet can doubt that something is badly wrong. But now those of us who want to come through the information crisis wiser, better, and more deeply connected to other human beings have a trusted guide we can rely on
Bill Thompson
Original, witty and profound – Naomi Alderman's broad historical perspective makes sense of our turbulent age with verve and wisdom
Rafael Behr
Naomi Alderman has done more than write a Protect and Survive manual for the toxic fallout of the social media age: this is a book that will help you to live, hopefully, in the one thing that none of us can escape - the historical moment
Matthew Sweet

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