Welcome to Mortification of Spin, a casual conversation about things that count.

With Carl Truman, Todd Pruitt, and Amy Bird, Mortification of Spin is a weekly podcast from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

Let's join this week's conversation.

Music Well, welcome to Mordification of Spin. I'm Carl Truman. I'm here with my usual co-hosts, Todd Pruitt, and Amy Bird. And today we have a special guest on the program. It's a particular thrill for me.

I first came across this gentleman's writings. I think nearly 20 years ago when I was browsing

in a bookstore, came across a book with the intriguing title of A Visit to Vanity Fair, which was a collection of essays,

which were, well, when I bought the book, found them both stimulating and fascinating and extremely well written, and I resolved there and then that anything I could lay my hands on by this person I would read.

Perhaps I can't myself pay him a higher compliment than saying this person is always worth reading even or perhaps

especially when I disagree with him because he makes me think. And that's one of the reasons why

we've got him on today. I guessed is Alan Jacobs, who is the distinguished professor of humanities

in the honours program at Bailey University. And he's just published a book, How to Think, a Survival Guide for a

World at Odds. And that's going to be the topic of our conversation today. So, welcome to the program,

Alan. Thanks for having me on, Carl. It's great to have you here. First question, this is a great book,

but how on earth do I give it to my friends without insulting them with the title like that?

We're talking about that before.

Yeah, you know, I actually didn't think about that until the book already came out and I realized that I may have made a catastrophic error.

But I think the way to do it is to say, I'm sure you know people who could benefit from this.

That's how you would do it. And if you wish to read it, you know, I'm sure you know people who could benefit from this. That's how you would do it.

And if you wish to read it, you know, then by all means do so. But this will be for your friends who don't quite live up to your expectation. I think that's how to sell it. Well, I subversively

got into the hands of Todd Naby by saying, let's do a podcast. That's right. That works.

It's all about deflection.

We have to deflect the assumed accusation.

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