The idea that academia is a meritocracy in which intelligence and hard work will inevitably result in a long and storied career sounds these days like the foundation myth of a dead religion. Inger Mewburn’s How to Be an Academic is a salve for people such as myself who were silly enough to pursue a research career anyway. Bringing together some of the more popular posts from her blog, ‘The Thesis Whisperer’, Mewburn’s book is alternately a survival guide and a resistance manual for the modern university workplace.