I started writing a story while I was in college in the early '90's where Ireland was completely submerged and everyone had fled to central Europe to escape the rising oceans. There was some sort of plague too (HIV was lethal then, so an obvious allegory) and a lot of preventative measures were needed before going outdoors (because of the hole in the ozone layer). It was your common or garden Gen X disaster scenario, and it's one I thought about a lot during the pandemic. I imagined a lot of things when I was in my late teens, but I didn't imagine half of what reality wrought.

So much of what happens in the world seems inexplicable, you sometimes need a calm guide to help you see the through lines, the tiny filaments that connect events, and people, and the planet, and everything. A calm guide, mind you, not a conspiracy-parroting one. For a large part of my life, Naomi Klein has been that guide. From No Logo, through the Shock Doctrine, and on to This Changes Everything, I've read her books and seen them as bellwethers of cultural change.

Naomi Wolf, not so much. I tried reading The Beauty Myth when everyone else was, but I'd already pretty much rejected any gendered expectations so it wasn't revelatory to me. The only other published book of hers I'm really aware of is The Treehouse and that's because it struck me as an odd reversal of her feminist ideals. I shrugged it off with the old cliché about how some people get more conversative as they get older. I hadn't truly realized how conservative (maybe that should be "conservative"?) Naomi Wolf had become until I started reading Doppelganger and Naomi Klein gave a full (yet somehow generous and kind) accounting of it.

If all Doppelganger was concerned with was getting which Naomi is which straight in peoples' heads, it would have been a fine read. But Klein doesn't stop there, she tells us about all kinds of doubles in art and literature, and leads us from autism to the Israel/Palestine conflict via Red Vienna and the Holocaust. She asks us to consider our own doubles, and what we might learn from them. This is a timely, meaty book, that took me an age to read because I kept having to put it down so I could fully process what I was reading.

Doppelganger is a barometer that warns us of the many storms coming and reminds us of what we all need to do to prevent a future not terribly unlike the one I dreamed up 30 years ago.

I hope lots of people read it, and I hope they also heed it.

Thank you to Penguin Press for providing me with an advanced copy, it truly is "a usable map of our moment in history".

More than anything else, this book made me think about how easily we believe things in this digital day and age. How easy to not read/see the whole picture before a like/comment/share until the truth itself is blurred. Thoughtful passages on the digital life, the ease of access to information (which could be tweaked intentionally or unintentionally), a doppelganger situation. In this book Klein analyzes how people mixed her up with another writer and the impact of Wolf's antivax/conspiracy theories had on her own life. Naomi and other Naomi. In this case only the names are similar, but their identities were mixed up by the audience. Ultimately it made me think how easy it is for us to mix up things, facts, people in this fast paced world; and are we ready for this?

A book about two Naomis. It starts with Klein overhearing someone mistake her for Naomi Wolf

As the Atlantic says about Naomi Wolf:
“ But she is now one of America’s most prolific conspiracy theorists, boasting on her Twitter profile of being “deplatformed 7 times and still right.” She has claimed that vaccines are a “software platform” that can “receive ‘uploads’ ” and is mildly obsessed with the idea that many clouds aren’t real, but are instead evidence of “geoengineered skies.” Although Wolf has largely disappeared from the mainstream media, she is now a favored guest on Steve Bannon’s podcast, War Room.”

Any interesting read

Thanks to NetGallery for the ARC.

Well, this one left me puzzled. On one hand, we have a well-known Naomi Klein who made herself known from her reporting on capitalism and evil corporations. On the other hand, we have Naomi Wolf, who is a real person, but who has totally different opinions from Klein on literally everything. The problem is... or rather Kleins' problem is, that people often confuse these two, which is harmful for her career. I fully understand her frustration and feel sorry for her. But MY problem here is that this feels like it's all about bashing Wolf and Bannon by the way. If these two won't sue her that would be a miracle, because I sure would.
And because of this everything that Klein wants to say in this book gets somehow lost, washed away. There are some interesting parts, but these are rare and small, it would be fantastic if she could expand her thoughts and reflections. But no, she just keeps going back to Wolf.
Dear Naomi... please rewrite this, because it's worth it.

Doppelganger is a sprawling new work from Naomi Klein which explores the idea of the double from every possible angle. This is deep and thorough investigative journalism which takes you through what Klein describes as 'the Mirror World' and its spiraling reflections. Klein picks complex ideas apart and contextualises them in history, providing thought-provoking insight into how conspiracy theories take root.

There is definitely a sense that this book was a personal, somewhat obsessive mission for Klein, who for years has been perplexed by people confusing her with Naomi Wolf, a writer with a very different world view. While Doppelganger takes you to some interesting places, there's no getting round the fact that it's overly long and overly self-indulgent. Even though Klein's prose is full of self-assurance, I felt like it could've been pared back and structured a little more soundly.

That said, the subject matter is fascinating and there is a lot I will take away from Doppelganger: a book that's bewildering and brilliant in equal measures.

Really fascinating book that digs into some very topical themes. Naomi Klein is a very talented writer and deserves credit for an exceptional book!

Have you been feeling that in the last few years things are slightly off with the world? Public violence seems to be increasing, & people have little time, care, or respect for others. Online, the slightest disagreement results in pile-ons, doxxing, & calls for people to lose their jobs. I know that I sometimes look around & wonder what the hell is going on. There's a feeling that we have truly stepped through the looking glass. Naomi Klein calls this the Shadow or Mirror world, which leads her onto Doppelganger culture: the world of the Shadow selves.

Klein, author of books such as 'No Logo' & 'Shock Doctrine' has over the last few years been continually confused with another writer of a similar name but who holds the opposite viewpoints in many things. It's all a bit tenuous - I can imagine it is frustrating to have people keep attributing her words to you, but a doppelganger? Not sure. There were some very interesting sections, one being the modern 'branding' of the self as a selling point which is fuelling this reluctance to be seen even considering other viewpoints lest they spoil our 'brand' (the polarised debate over face mask wearing during Covid is one topic covered). Another being the argument that the ideas synonymous with Nazi Germany did not spring from nowhere but were influenced both by the expansionist policies of contemporary Europe & the eugenics & segregation polices of the US.

Overall though it jumps about from topic to topic (including racism, xenophobia, the Holocaust, communism, climate change, Covid, & facism) & it was difficult at times to stay on track whilst reading. My mind started to wander at times. There were some things I agreed with but others I was not altogether convinced. It's my least favourite of her books that I've read for sure. There were several mentions of several films & books which deal with doppelgangers, most of which I noted down for later reading/watching. 2.5 stars (rounded up)

My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Penguin Press UK/Allen Lane, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Really fascinating book that delves into some very topical themes. Naomi Klein is an extremely talented writer that handles the topic effectively.

Naomi Klein takes you on a journey through the world's you know, the ones you think you know and through to the 'Shadow Lands' where you don't want to know. However as discussed in this book it is important to know each, understanding where points of view actually come from may help us make positive changes that will benefit everyone. At times a hard book to read but one that is important and one that will change how you see everything.

Doppelganger is a book about the warped internet and real world of conspiracy theories, wellness bloggers, and far right podcasts, centred around author Naomi Klein being mistaken for the now pretty infamous Naomi Wolf. Klein explores what happened as people started to conflate the two of them and how she became obsessed with her 'doppelganger' Wolf, wanting to understand her seemingly changed opinions and political stance, and the impact it was having on Klein's own position. Through this lens, she explores some of the areas of conspiracy theory and culture that make up the media world that Wolf is part of, and calls for collective action to fight this 'mirror world'.

From the blurb, it is easy to be drawn to the book if you have any awareness of who the two Naomis are and the impact it might have being thought to be the other one. I've not read any of either of their books, but are aware of their respective works and Wolf's decent into Covid conspiracy seemingly started with the radio debacle blowing a whole in her entire book, so I felt it would be an interesting story to hear, and it was definitely something different, framing a book not just around the polarised viewpoints in current politics and internet discourse, but in being drawn into them through a sense of doubleness and how this doubleness pervades other discussions in this area too.

Some of the best parts of the book are Klein's personal experiences with being mistaken for and being obsessed with Wolf, as well as the charting of Wolf's public life and work. Though there's lots of other interesting content (particularly Klein's analysis of why wellness/New Age type people might find themselves agreeing and working with right wing commentators, which hits hard if you've ever known anyone in the former category), it feels less ordered and structured than the stuff about Wolf, meaning you're not always sure where the argument is going. I expected the ending to have more about what can be done about the polarised ideas causing people to fall down rabbit holes of conspiracy, but a single book isn't going to solve that, and Klein's parting argument about collective action fights against the individualism that she highlights so many people fall into as part of these beliefs.

This book feels like the sort of long YouTube video essay I'd watch, combining the personal with commentary and analysis, and the concept is fascinating, a chance to really look at one person's adoption of conspiracy theories and huge fame with the far right coming after being most famous for a 90s book about feminism and beauty. In an age of personal brand monetisation, it is really interesting to read a book by someone impacted by the ease of mistaken identity in the digital age, and to think about why some conspiracy theories have become so popular.

“Other Naomi—that is how I refer to her now. This person with whom I have been chronically confused for over a decade. My big-haired doppelganger. A person whom so many others appear to find indistinguishable from me. A person who does many extreme things that cause strangers to chastise me or thank me or express their pity for me.”

My thanks to Penguin Press U.K. Allen Lane for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Doppelganger’ by Naomi Klein. The subtitle of this superb work of nonfiction is ‘A Trip Into the Mirror World’. I complemented my reading with its unabridged audiobook edition, read by the author.

I began reading with little knowledge of the content though quickly realised that this wasn’t an abstract tale of a doppelgänger but that Naomi Klein was writing about how people have been regularly confusing her with the writer Naomi Wolf, aka the Other Naomi.

While I was not that familiar with Klein’s work, I had read the occasional article by her. However, I was more familiar with Naomi Wolf, having read ‘The Beauty Myth’. Like many I was aware (and shocked) by Wolf’s radical change from a liberal feminist to embracing far-right conspiracy theories and advocating for the same, as well as her aligning with the likes of Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. So I was immediately curious as to how Naomi Klein would address this complex subject.

In order to understand the why of this extreme change in a woman whom Klein not only shared a first name but had admired, she decided to follow her double down the ‘rabbit hole’ into a bizarre mirror world. Along the way she examines aspects of our modern day culture and poses important questions, such as how often this polarity between the Left and Right can not only stifle debate but lead to important questions not being asked by both sides due to fears of stepping through the mirror and so becoming ‘one of them’. This particular point resonated strongly with me.

I was riveted by this book and found Klein’s writing accessible and felt that she addressed various issues, some quite complex, in clear terms. Like all good nonfiction it has copious notes, including bibliographic references, and an index.

Overall, ‘Doppelganger’ proved an intelligent, interesting, and thought provoking book. Klein took me on a fascinating journey and I have been enthusiastically recommending it as a ‘must read’.

Not what I expected. I found this book really difficult to engage with and the author’s style very jarring. I didn’t know much about the author so am unfamiliar with her previous non-fiction work. The title and blurb made this sound really interesting so I wanted to give it a go, but sadly the writing was really off-putting and not knowing the people probably didn’t help. Appreciated the chance to read but had to abandon.

Naomi Klein has been persistently mistaken for Naomi Wolf on social media, a woman whose views are radically different to her own, views that can be described as conspiracy theory driven. This book covers her reaction to this, the damage to her personal brand, and takes a wider look at how her issues with her doppelgänger link to society at large.

This is a more personal book that Klein’s other works and it felt like this is her way of processing something unpleasant in her life. The book is interesting, well-written and full of insights. Crucially, it is very fair - her anger and frustration were tempered very well and the book came across as balanced, well-researched and non-judgemental. I think it would appeal to anyone who has an interest in what is going on in our society today. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

With thanks to Netgalley and Allen Lane for this ARC.

I like a complex book with an unusual story but this one pushed the limits.
The introduction is long, and I’m still not sure if it’s supposed to be part of the story.
The rest of the book is very disjointed.
I have to admit I found myself skipping through the last half just to see what happened at the end

For me, this is a difficult book to review. The author has some important, insightful and well researched observations about the behaviour of significant sections of the population that I have previously found bewildering and difficult to comprehend: conspiracy theorists, deniers of various kinds, and those that would liken minor lifestyle inconveniences with the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis. However, the book felt in places like a disjointed ragbag of ideas that were loosely (sometimes very loosely) tied together by the Doppelgänger theme - a theme that often felt slightly forced, or crowbarred in to justify talking about a particular topic in the context of the book.

Given the disjoint nature of the book, I was also left unsatisfied regarding any overall conclusion. The suggestion that we should work together, rather than as individuals, to address many of the problems we are currently facing seems shallow and weak - especially compared to the depth and strength of some of the issues covered, and the detail with which they have clearly been researched.

After reading this book, I do feel like I have more insight behind what might be driving some mass behaviours that I otherwise found incomprehensible - but I don’t know where that leaves me. I certainly don’t feel any better equipped, nor more hopeful - so I feel I may have missed something.

Thank you #NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for the free review copy of #Doppelganger in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I could not get into this book at all. I found it a bit disjointed and the start was very long.

The books main focus was on conspiracy theories which are unfortunately not my cup of tea. I really liked the sound of the book from the blurb but I just couldn’t get into i. I’m very sorry. I will not review on Goodreads.

I must admit this wasn’t the kind of book wasn’t for me. I found it really difficult to get into and follow.

I could not get into this book at all. The blurb doesn't read as nonfiction so maybe this is my mistake. The book focuses on conspiracy theories which just wind me up anyway so this is a nope from me.

I couldn't get into this at all. Very disjointed which is made worse and practically unreadable by the typos and missing letters. Massively long introduction which seemed needless and all in all seems to be a vehicle of personal indulgence.

The NYTimes review ended with “ If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one.” I couldn’t say it better