What is authenticity?

The answer seems to be growing ever more complex. However, ‘Authenticity’ does an excellent job of navigating the nuances of this notion in an engaging and often entertaining manner. The anecdotes add value to the narrative, rather than detracting from it, which can be a risk with some non-fiction reads.

I found the final section focused on technology to be particularly insightful and thought provoking. I work in cybersecurity, so deal with questions regarding authenticity on a daily basis. From a technology perspective with the rising popularity of AI, the concept of authenticity is becoming increasingly problematic. Sherwood navigates this challenging territory with a healthy dose of realism, but also with a much-needed sense of optimism.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would wholeheartedly recommend it for any Non-Fiction readers, but especially those with an interest in technology.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, it was incredibly well researched and easily accessible. I was worried there may be too much jargon however that wasn’t the case. Authenticity kept my full interest throughout the whole book and I truly hope the author writes about more topics as I loved learning about counterfeit culture in this format.

I found this book so fascinating.
Really makes you think about what authentic means and whether in fact we ourselves are authentic.

An interesting and well written, but ultimately quite depressing book. Although the author finishes with a rallying crying for the truth army to fight the current waves of misinformation, it did feel as if, with the advent of social media, rolling news etc the scope of present unauthentic goings on are so much broader than an art forger or someone pretending to be someone else.

I found this a really interesting read, not my usual type of book, but I am glad I got the opportunity to read it.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

This was a really fascinating book and I read it twice and I was thinking about some of the stories, long after I closed the book. There are some incredible people in these pages and sometimes horrifying to think they are real. Or are they? Ms Sherwood’s thesis covers what is real and authentic and how do we protect ourselves against the inauthentic. And indeed can we?

From people pretending to be doctors, to fantasists with fantastic stories, to government collusion and widespread fraud, this book is bursting with them all. The author shares her own experiences and a horrible story about a friend and I found myself questioning my own reactions. I’m not sure how I would behave in some of the situations described but after reading this, I will strive to be more authentic. I think…

Recommended as a gift for a hard to please person who needs something to think about.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley

Not a book I’d normally choose, but I found myself enthralled by many of the ‘stories’ - really educational with a good dash of humour. I found myself retelling parts to my family over dinner!

‘the theory — no matter how bonkers — could be just three clicks away’

It’s not easy to pigeonhole Alice Sherwood’s Authenticity. Through this sequence of opinion pieces runs Sherwood’s essayist’s gab. There is no denying it. Her prose sparkles with precision language—argot, fedora, mea culpas, and noisome. She floats on a higher plane, projecting a god-like grasp of all things, one-moment economicsy and evolutionary, arty the next. However, the book is not quite the philosophy and sociology it pretends to be. It is more like a quiz. The answers seem straightforward, then, gotcha!, they trip you up.

Erudition typically casts shadows where personal views can lurk unobtrusively. Unlike a deity, but like a minister of religious doctrine, Sherwood doesn’t question the authenticity of her opinions, and, finally, they come to light as expressions of empire and prejudice. Typically, into a flavoursome soup of celebrity, Sherwood tosses more serious seasoning. With Andy Warhol, a little quotation from Tim Wu. But it’s not straightforward. Wu quotes William James, who reflects that our lives, and so, our ideas, are less our own than we imagine. Sherwood marshals this circuit of quotation and fiction, anecdote and facts—readers would not catch them if left to their own devices. Sherwood’s examples are eclectic. However, their choice is insidious, flattering the luxury of insight, opportunity, and investment, a rules-based order. She slams down, but never hard, on opportunists seeking to flout trademark and Copywrite. She champions the democracy that promises equality, ignoring that such a social order privileges the elites who can afford health, soundly stitched clothing and accessories, and expensive art.

As the book progresses, Sherwood becomes more vitriolic. She goes from funny tales to a personal story, where, affectingly, she reveals vulnerability. It’s all warm and funny, with a soft spot for the odd deceptive psychopath. But then there is Shnapple, and Sherwood gets into an invective stride against subterfuge in the everyday. She is affronted that the drink won’t disclose the source of its natural flavour. Previously, with more esoteric curiosities, the undisclosed touch of an artist’s assistant, or a fake blood test, the stories were examples of the inauthentic, but now it seems she cares about authenticity. Where the distresses brought by a con artist, a maternal surrogate, or a high-value forgery are bumps in the road, the missing apple in the apple fizz is another register of despicableness. Strangely, her meticulous research, bristling with footnotes, evaporates in the brief chapter about the fight against malaria. The section feels like publicity sponsored by big pharma. I was curious to know the source of the assession that “The majority of the world’s ’ Bad Phama’ comes from China.” But its footnote leads to the line, “Although India is a major player too.” It gives the impression that the chapter is a racist tirade, inauthentic rubbish. Sherwood discredits Mao’s drive for the unification of medication, the best of both worlds, Western and vernacular while espousing its efficacy in finding a cure for malaria. Previously Sherwood wrote of patents and copywrites, but the cure for malaria doesn’t fit with a litigious mindset, guarantees of ownership, and the protection of future profits. The malarial drug is gifted to the world. This disregard for holding on to property is, for Sherwood, an anomaly. What captures her imagination is profiteering, trade secrets, hoarding medical discoveries, caring for power elites. Her vague critique stabs at the Chinese as ‘morally culpable’ because they allow their discovery to be free. In Sherwood’s narrative, the democratisation of discovery and altruism shorten the effective life of the drug. With even cursory scrutiny, her story is spurious.

Previously, Chloroquine was the substance used to control malaria. It was first synthesised by the Bayer laboratories in Germany in 1934 but wasn’t deployed as a malarial medication until ten years later. Chloroquine’s formulation was stolen by the US and first used as a treatment in 1947. Resistance to Chloroquine was noted in the late 50s. It was endemic by the 1970s, probably partly because of an aggressive eradication campaign launched by the World Health in 1955. So, a mere 12 years of reliability. By contrast, the Chinese chemist Tu Youyou discovered Artemisinin in 1972, and no resistance was reported until 36 years later. Artemisinin remains the primary drug used to control malaria. Sherwood’s subjective anti-China rhetoric confounds her crusade to root out inauthenticity.

For Sherwood, this crusade is a two-pronged attack. She differentiates between authentic verisimilitude and personal authenticity, being true to oneself. Her subtitle, Reclaiming Reality in a Counterfeit Culture, implies that hers is a fightback against current conditions. For all her brio, insight, and powers of persuasion, Sherwood overlooks the most important thing, that, at any time, authentic truth belongs to the dominant power. Authenticity is the best-promoted version of reality. The counterfeit picture of the world is the one you are reading that suppresses a different perspective. The problem of contemporary authenticity is that it is part of a “torrent of mis- and disinformation.”

This is exactly the sort of book I enjoy best on audio, but wanted to give the ebook a try. I’m glad I did as there are some really interesting ideas here, around a topic I haven’t previously read about. Definitely has me questioning the people and institutions around me, along with my own beliefs around my personal “authenticity “. A thinker for sure!

This was an interesting book on authenticity and many different aspects of it.
It was well-researched and interestingly stringed together, however, I think before reading the book I was expecting something slightly different. I found it fascinating that there were examples of butterflies mimicking the nature around them etc, although I think scoping into that made the book very wide and perhaps lost some focus.
All in all still a fascinating book, with interesting stories about authenticity.

The words of Inigo Montoya kept rolling around in my head as I read Authenticity: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means".

Using examples from nature and from human history Sherwood explores what we really mean when say something is authentic.

Sherwood writes with clarity and humour, she has mastered the deft trick of making the reader feel smart. It's the sort of non-fiction that changes your perceptions and is the sort of book that you tell all your mates about.

The opening chapters about mimicary and frauds were particularly strong. The idea that we have to try on a few personalities or jobs to find one that fulfils us gave me a different perspective on catfishes and imposters.

The chapter about art was fascinating and really dug into the idea about who has the authority to declare something as authentic.



I really enjoyed this book. Highly recommended.

Authenticity, it sounds like a virtue to aspire to but is it just one of those words? Alice Sherwood goes back to basics and considers what we mean by authenticity and if it is possible to identify what it might or might not look like in practice.

The book begins by identifying a fundamental problem with the notion of authenticity. An authentic account of a historical event is factually accurate but someone with personal authenticity is true to themselves. The politician whose version of events has to be constantly fact-checked can be personally authentic because s/he is "aspirational and self-actualising", "non-conformist" rather than giving in to the pressure of society, in other words, true to themselves.

Authenticity, Alice argues, has come to mean more or less what we want it to mean: what has an authentic Rembrandt got in common with an authentic pasta sauce "just like Nonna used to make!"? She explores the concept of authenticity using case studies of con artists, examples of trickery in nature and examining "the authenticity of things". In the latter section the chapter sub headed "why we overrate originality" raises valid questions about how original a fashion item can be and how much it matters, after all our predecessors considered creativity to happen by degrees (for example, Shakespeare's description of Cleopatra is lifted almost word for word from an earlier work, surely not plagiarism?).

I would recommend this book as a great read. Alice Sherwood's background as a BBC producer is evident in both structure and content of the book (I'd watch the TV series). It would be an ideal discussion starter for a wide range of students, exploring as it does, intellectual property, marketing, creativity and originality.

I was completely engaged by this book which uses a wide array of examples to examine the wider subject of what authenticity and being authentic actually means today. Starting with the fabulous story of Stanley Weyman, a quite remarkable conman, it also examines some of the natural world's imposters, taking in a biological look at what authenticity means there.

Other chapters range in subject from counterfeiters to who originally created the tuxedo. Even authenticity in marketing is critiqued using the case of the soft drink Snapple.

There are personal stories in here too, and I don't want to spoil them here. </p>

Everything in this book is relevant and even if some of the stories and characters are familiar, I'm sure that others will be new to you. If you're the sort of person who enjoys listening to Tim Harford podcasts, then this book will be absolutely up your street.

There's even a section of what authenticity means when we live in virtual worlds - something that is already a real-world issue in social media and is only set to become bigger as we enter (perhaps) the metaverse.

I loved this book, and thoroughly recommend it.

This is a book that showcases how unnatural the modern human obsession with authenticity can be when we consider the role counterfeiting and mimicry play in our society and in nature.

Authenticity is full of historical examples of humans and animals behaving in a parasitic way to survive. It also details ways of countering counterfeits, scams, and dishonesty that is ever-present in everyone, even ourselves.

Authenticity by Sherwood is a robust book with interesting insights into human nature and the gaps in our thinking about who we really are.

Authenticity, in other words being true, trustworthy and unique, is a concept subject to individual bias that can never be fully explored, but Sherwood has a good go She initially segments the concept of authenticity into evidence-based public verisimilitude and inwardly-focused individual authenticity. As we follow the author in her investigation of authenticity in art, fashion and science, the two segments become increasingly linked and disjointed, only to be linked once more. Sherwood’s final chapter addresses the book’s subtitle as it invites the reader to ‘reclaim reality’ from the complex environment marked by counterfeit signifiers. That this task will be an entirely subjective labour, and one that can never be fully achieved, is obvious but I liked the premise nevertheless. Sherwood is a senior academic and open source intelligence specialist, so it is no surprise that she invites her readers on a demanding journey into theoretical, often abstract territory. Her book qualifies as a wonderful eye-opener, though, that should read plenty of interested readers. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers for the free ARC that enabled me to read Sherwood’s book and to produce this honest and unbiased review.

We live in an age when the pursuit of authenticity – from living our 'best life' to eating artisan food – matters more and more to us, Our world is full of people and products that are not what they seem. We no longer know whether we are talking to a person or a machine.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. I do, however, think this works better as an audiobook. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

One of the odd things about Authenticity - the book and the concept - is its slipperiness of definition. The concept initially tries to pin a degree of truth and reality on the world, an authentic coin rather than a counterfeit, authentic qualifications versus bogus. But it has also come to mean a kind of spiritual reality, people talking about being their authentic selves, musician being authentic having lived the blues and worked their way up, a drink being made the way grandma used to (or at least the founders did). Alice Sherwood's book is equally slippery, partially because she tries to deal with all these forms of authenticity in one go, and partially because she knows that she has no greater claim to be an expert than anyone else. Its clear in her attention grabbing, footnote baiting intro that she fears for her own authenticity as the definitive guide to authenticity.

The opening, with its rattling off of implausible facts which it begs us to check in the footnotes (including a fact about how many people will actually do that), starts with a bang and continues in that fashion. Each chapter takes on a different idea of authenticity, the earlier chapters are more interested int he old fashioned form of the word (so we get Newton and the Royal Mint, and a man who drifted through personalities like Zelig). The stories are refreshingly a mixture of things we may know - Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos is told at a clip here, and unknown - Sherwood had her own scammer in her life which she tells candidly. There is philosophy, true crime, and even rousing marketing stories (the Snapple story which manages to make two points that an authentic brand can survive without the authentic product). Its a hugely entertaining read.

But does Alice Sherwood succeed in defining and nailing down what authenticity is? She gives herself an out on this rather early on, and in many ways she hedges her bets a little too much. Whilst the book contains deeper, more philosophical notes, she shies away from trying to be definitive - not least because she has already noted quite how much the term has shifted in meaning.. The concept starts with objective truth but once we get to subjective and spiritual truths and lifestyle choices she knows we are in the woods. But she does do a good job at debunking the idea of off the shelf authenticity, whilst accepting that it might be the only way we piece together the stuff that defines us as individuals. Even within itself Authenticity is a book with a dual nature. It is a terrific read, but it knows it is not in a position to make any authentic long-lasting statement. Its not a book that closes the topic, its one that opens it out for this moment in time, and accepts it would be inauthentic to try to do anything else.

A rich insightful book that you must read to understand what authenticity is and how it has shaped our world and also gave way to counterfeit. It was immersive and could not stop myself for reading and completing this book. Loved it!
Thank you publisher for the e-arc.

Absolutely thrilling! Not only was it incredibly insightful but a real joy to read! I truly didn't expect it to be as entertaining as it was!

An intriguing and thought provoking book that allows the reader gain a new perspective on the world, life, history and pretty much anything. A great read.