SHORTLIST
Cover of Clear Thinking

Clear Thinking

  • AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including McKinsey & Company, for a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100.

Appears on these lists

Our take

AI-drafted

Parrish, better known for the Farnam Street blog, builds the book around four instinctive failure modes — emotion, ego, social pressure, and inertia — that hijack decisions before deliberate thought gets a chance. The recurring critique is one of originality: several reviewers describe it as a well-organized synthesis of ideas already circulating in decision-science writing rather than a genuinely new contribution.

In the press

How the Consensus Score is calculated

Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.

SourceAuthorityRecencyAwardContribution
McKinsey & Company0.800.851.00×0.68
Weighted sum → Score0.6815

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Because they appear on some of the same lists.

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Frequently asked

What lists is Clear Thinking on?

Clear Thinking appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including McKinsey & Company.

What is its Consensus Score?

Clear Thinking has a Consensus Score of 15 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.