“Because what [narcissists] have inside is empty space, they have had to make a study of the selves of others in order to invent something that looks and sounds like one. Narcissists are imitators par excellence. And they do not copy the small, boring parts of selves. They take what they think are the biggest, most impressive parts of other selves, and devise a hologram of self that seems superpowered. Let’s call it ‘selfiness,’ this simulacrum of a superpowered self.” Go enjoy this excerpt from Kristin Dombek’s new book The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism.
A Caricature of ‘Not a Good Person’
“Filmmaking is an adventure. Treat it as such.”
Beasts of the Southern Wild director Benh Zeitlin discusses the lessons he’s learned over the past year. He also gives a shout out to Underground, a film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. Elsewhere, Zeitlin shares some of the music, books, and movies he’s been enjoying of late.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Shapiro; Bray; Dainty; Fairchild; Cooley; Euripides
New this week: You’re Not Much Use to Anyone by David Shapiro; A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray; After Everything by Suellen Dainty; The Blue Buick by B.H. Fairchild; Ice Shear by M.P. Cooley; and a new translation of The Bacchae by Euripides. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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James Franco’s Syllabus
Before James Franco’s class began, he assigned each of his students to conceive a short film inspired by a different C.K. Williams poem about “decay, but also a sense of memory and rejuvenation.” This November, the class will travel to Detroit to shoot the movie.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Hanif, Grossman, Barnes
New this week is Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif and Lev Grossman’s The Magician King and Julian Barnes’s Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending are out in paperback.
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Harper Lee’s Unsolved Mystery
In 1970, Harper Lee came to a small town to write about a crime that occurred there, a gruesome murder that was staged to look like a car accident.
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