Editor’s Choice Bookseller
Eminently suitable for readers of both Yuval Noah Harari and Daniel Kahneman,Selfiealso has shades of Jon Ronson in its subversive humour and investigative spirit . . .Selfie, without being remotely fluffy, just might be the ultimate in post-truth comfort reading.”
The Times
Storr has done huge amounts of research for this book . . . he conveys it with a gifted lightness of touch.
Independent
Brilliant.
Harper's Bazaar
A timely, inspiring book about self-obsession in modern life.
Guardian
Thoughtful and engaging . . . Storr’s cultural history is fascinating.
Observer
An entertaining history of the self, from
Narcissus to Trump.
Financial Times
An ambitious argument . . . Storr is an electrifying analyst of Internet culture.
Booklist
British journalist and novelist Storrtakes on the ambitious subject of how people think of themselves. . . . The latest from the adroit, widely respected Storr.
Toronto Star
This entertaining investigation is essentially a social history of the self, from earliest times (when we worked to increase our status within the tribe) to our current vainglorious self (hungry for likes and approbation on social media). Each of the seven chapters examines an aspect of self; for each of them, Storr, a lively, affable guide, introduces us to an exemplar, some familiar (Confucius, Ayn Rand, Donald Trump) and many more who are not. The final chapter offers Storr’s counsel on “How to Stay Alive in the Age of Perfectionism.” Step 1: try to set aside the current tribal propaganda and embrace your flawed and often unlikeable self.
Nathan Hill
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.
The New Republic
[A] free ranging account of the modern, ego-driven Western self. . . . A corrective, and a much-needed one, to a moment fixated on its own particularity.
The Daily Beast
Smartphones and social media are turning us into dreadful narcissists. Would anyone care to dispute this? Yes, actually. His name is Will Storr . . . We’re missing the point when we complain about technologically induced egotism . . .The root problem, [Selfie] contends, isn’t our devices or our social media sites. It’s us. Or rather, it’s the civilization we’ve built, a culture that for many decades has encouraged ever greater degrees of self-regard.”
USA Today
Spoiler alert: Despite its trendy title,Selfieis not a frivolous book about taking photographs of oneself and littering social media with them, although this pastime is examined . . .Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Usis an ambitious survey of the influences that make us who we are. In addition to his own experiences and insights, Storr draws on scholarly literature and interviews experts on the human personality. He ably synthesizes centuries of attitudes and beliefs about selfhood, primarily in western thought, from Aristotle, John Calvin and Freud, to Sartre, Ayn Rand and Steve Jobs. His straightforward prose and personal anecdotes make all of it eminently digestible.”
The New York Times Book Review
An intriguing odyssey of self-discovery.
The Washington Post
In this fascinating psychological and social history, Storr reveals how biology and culture conspire to keep us striving for perfection, and the devastating toll that can take.
Kirkus Reviews
2017-11-14
Studying self-image from a variety of perspectives.The idea of the self has long fascinated British novelist and journalist Storr (The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, 2014), and he scrutinizes the topic through both historical and contemporary lenses. The author probes themes of identity and reputation in an anthropologically sound examination of the ancestral tribal brain and the inherent nature of humans to become preoccupied with perfectionism and outward perception. He traces ideas of self-imagery and cultural influence back to ancient Greece, contrasts Confucian and Aristotelian principles, and looks at the work of Ayn Rand. He intermingles these notions with a chronicle of his conversation with a brutish former club bouncer whose violently aggressive demeanor, according to psychologists, stems from low self-esteem issues. Some scientists argue for the significance of threatened masculinity and ego, which correlates to Storr's introduction to the personal growth-focused Esalen Institute, whose main intent remains to improve attendees' general self-esteem. The author's immersion in the encounter groups at the facility's "Big Yurt" provides a revealing look at the individualistic author himself. In another self-commentary, he equates his extra belly fat with a "moral transgression," a failure to match the historically and culturally normative blueprint of what his body should resemble. Reflections on neoliberalism follow a discussion of his extended stay at Silicon Valley's Rainbow Mansion tech commune, where a millennial narcissist obsessively takes hundreds of selfies daily, continually incentivized by social media's virtual validation. The book is uncommonly structured into large segments with text that often glides into a stream-of-consciousness flow, featuring ideas and points of reference that correlate but sometimes seem haphazardly arranged. Nonetheless, Storr continually delivers rich insights, historically grounded conclusions, and more contemporary deliberations on his subject's relevance to the Trump campaign and how to stay hopeful living in a me-first world.Captivating, self-reflective research on our culture of rampant egocentricity.
