A disintegrating romantic anatomy in five acts.

“An intriguing odyssey” though the history of the self and the rise of narcissism (The New York Times). Self-absorption, perfectionism, personal branding—it wasn’t always like this, but it’s always been a part of us. Why is the urge to look at ourselves so powerful? Is there any way to break its spell—especially since it doesn’t necessarily make us better or happier people? Full of unexpected connections among history, psychology, economics, neuroscience, and more, Selfie is a “terrific” book that makes sense of who we have become (NPR’s On Point). Award-winning journalist Will Storr takes us from ancient Greece, through the Christian Middle Ages, to the self-esteem evangelists of 1980s California, the rise of the “selfie generation,” and the era of hyper-individualism in which we live now, telling the epic tale of the person we all know so intimately—because it’s us. “It’s easy to look at Instagram and selfie-sticks and shake our heads at millennial narcissism. But Will Storr takes a longer view. He ignores the easy targets and instead tells the amazing 2,500-year story of how we’ve come to think about our selves. A top-notch journalist, historian, essayist, and sleuth, Storr has written an essential book for understanding, and coping with, the 21st century.” —Nathan Hill, New York Times-bestselling author of The Nix “This fascinating psychological and social history . . . reveals how biology and culture conspire to keep us striving for perfection, and the devastating toll that can take.”—The Washington Post “Ably synthesizes centuries of attitudes and beliefs about selfhood, from Aristotle, John Calvin, and Freud to Sartre, Ayn Rand, and Steve Jobs.” —USA Today “Eminently suitable for readers of both Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman, Selfie also has shades of Jon Ronson in its subversive humor and investigative spirit.” —Bookseller “Storr is an electrifying analyst of Internet culture.” —Financial Times “Continually delivers rich insights . . . captivating.” —Kirkus Reviews

You see them every day, the suicide flowers. They bloom from the cracks and crevices of concrete sidewalks. From between asphalt creases and gaps. Yet these flowers blossom and prosper until the careless foot tramples. Others wither and fade, having survived, despite their strained and dubious foundations. Raeburn Messiah, the Messiah of Metal, sings for a living. Currently, he's on the downward spiral that unfaithful fame loves so dearly. He feels that he's got it bad, his life is over. That is, until he meets one of his most adoring fans, Gabriel, who has but months to live due to the complications of leukemia. They are men, both dying slow, painful deaths. But, each carries a secret that could save the other. For Raeburn and Gabriel are the suicide flowers, doomed to be trampled, destined to flourish.

Author Kirk F. Panneton battled acute depression for more than a decade prior to his nearly successful suicide attempt on January 27, 2013. Although that moment marked the peak of numerous physical and psychological struggles, it also serves as the starting point for his journey through the fourth dimension during his recovery. Panneton spent four weeks in a rural ICU in Arkansas in an epic battle for his own survival. During this time, he experienced a passage through hell as a soldier of light, as his loved ones looked on from the sidelines. He chose of life and love time and again in order to emerge victorious from the endless and unforgiving tests set forth for him by the forces of evil. In this memoir, he recounts his story of redemption, both his physical experiences after waking and those that occurred while he was in a comatose state. He shares not only his recollections but also personal writings from himself and from family members during that period describing the events as they lived them. Most of all, he presents a unique, firsthand narrative of his encounter with death in hopes of giving people everywhere a reason to keep going.

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family’s fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death. Jeffrey Eugenides evokes the emotions of youth with haunting sensitivity and dark humor and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin Suicides is a modern classic, a lyrical and timeless tale of sex and suicide that transforms and mythologizes suburban middle-American life.

This collection of essays explores intermediality as a new perspective in the interpretation of the cinemas that have emerged after the collapse of the former Eastern bloc. As an aesthetic based on a productive interaction of media and highlighting cinema's relationship with the other arts, intermediality always implies a state of in-betweenness which is capable of registering tensions and ambivalences that go beyond the realm of media. The comparative analyses of films from Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia demonstrate that intermediality can be employed in this way as a form of introspection dealing with complex issues of art and society. Appearing in a variety of sensuous or intellectual modes, intermediality can become an effective poetic strategy to communicate how the cultures of the region are caught in-between East and West, past and present, emotional turmoil and more detached self-awareness. The diverse theoretical approaches that unravel this in-betweenness contribute to the understanding of intermedial phenomena in contemporary cinema as a whole.

From James Preller, the author of Bystander, another unflinching book about bullying and its fallout. The summer before school starts, Sam's friend and classmate Morgan Mallen kills herself. Morgan had been bullied. Maybe she kissed the wrong boy. Or said the wrong thing. What about that selfie that made the rounds? Morgan was this, and Morgan was that. But who really knows what happened? As Sam explores the events leading up to the tragedy, he must face a difficult and life-changing question: Why did he keep his friendship with Morgan a secret? And could he have done something-anything-to prevent her final actions? This title has Common Core connections.