We Tell Ourselves Stories

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Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2025 by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, W Magazine, and The Millions, and one of the Best Books of Spring 2025 by Oprah Daily and Town & Country Named one of the Most Anticipated Books of the month by the New York Times, Town & Country, and the Los Angeles Times. "Sharp, elegant and eye-opening . . . a crucial toolbox for understanding both Joan Didion and Hollywood." —Emily Nussbaum Joan Didion opened The White Album (1979) with what would become one of the most iconic lines in American literature: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Today, this phrase is deployed inspirationally, printed on T-shirts and posters, used as a battle cry for artists and writers. In truth, Didion was describing something much less rosy: our human tendency to manufacture delusions that might ward away our anxieties when society seems to spin off its axis