3 Books Written
Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.
A razor-sharp short story about anonymity, mutual deception, and the perils of overexposure—debut fiction by Jia Tolentino, the New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror.With the pandemic looming, a listless social media editor accepts a job working for her former college friend Seraphina. A popular Instagram influencer, the subject of obsessive message-board surveillance, and a newly minted Karen of the Day, Seraphina is living out 2020 in the luxury of her “ultimate self-quarantine.” As the year escalates into upheaval and chaos, both women try, in increasingly secretive and complicated ways, to maintain the upper hand.Jia Tolentino’s I Would Be Doing This Anyway is part of Currency, a compounding collection of stories about wealth, class, competition, and collapse. If time is money, deposit here with interest. Read or listen in a single sitting.
A collection of the year’s best essays, selected by critically acclaimed author and essayist, Jia Tolentino.The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind.Jia Tolentino, critically acclaimed essayist, editor, and New Yorker staff writer, selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.