Much has been written in the past year about the phenomenon of fake news and falsified research infiltrating the mainstream and muddying important issues from vaccine effectiveness to voting irregularities to basic trust in science—including advice from the Washington Post just this week. In our sector, there have been attempts to trace the history and help the scholarly community come to grips with the rise in junk science. We at KGL have blogged recently how publishers can rely on industry partners, whether by helping manage the peer review process or streamlining production, to both publish critical research faster in a time of need while maintaining faith in the process.

For clearer understanding of the overall problem, we decided to dig deeper into the literature to uncover several works that can help discern what information can be trusted. Here are five books—from recent backlist to new releases, trade to academic—that can help both content providers and the public at large to be more savvy reporters and consumers of knowledge.