Smith is an excellent dramatizer of this dialectic, a witty and provocative guide leading the reader through chapters on logic, pseudoscience and death with a distinctive voice and considerable wit. The method of instructive ornamentation lends the work a digressive character, and the range of these digressions is impressively wide. Many of Smith’s unexpected comparisons, anecdotes and analogies are public-facing philosophy at its best—surprising and perceptive applications of philosophical ideas to familiar phenomena.