GENUINE FAKES: how phony things teach us about real stuff

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'Lively, thought-provoking and consistently surprising. Lydia Pyne is the real deal.' Ed Yong, author of New York Times bestseller I Contain MultitudesDoes an authentic Andy Warhol painting need to be painted by Andy Warhol? Why do audiences feel outraged when they find out that scenes from their beloved blockbuster documentaries are staged? Can people move past assuming that a diamond grown in a lab is a fake? What happens when a forged painting or manuscript becomes more valuable than its original?This is a book about genuine fakes – the curious and complex objects that provoke these very sorts of questions. Genuine fakes fall into the space between things that are real and things that are not; whether or not we think that those things are authentic is a matter of perspective. Unsurprisingly, the world is full of genuine fakes – full of things that defy simple categorisation.From stories of audacious forgeries to feats of...