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Guillermo del Toro says his new book, Cabinet of Curiosities, is his own "It Gets Better" advertisement.

Designed for handsome display on a coffee table, the tome is actually a thick and detailed look into the work and mind of the Mexican filmmaker. Cabinet of Curiosities boasts long interviews; photos from Bleak House, his personal collection (see No. 4); and excerpts from his prized notebooks that show the many ideas, influences, aborted plans, and recycled dreams that have gone into each of the nine major motion pictures that del Toro's directed over his 20-year career.

"I wanted to be candid," he told BuzzFeed, "but I wanted to be candid in a way that it can be useful for someone that was the way I was as a kid, where you feel that you’re a freak and you feel that you are never gonna fit somewhere. And then to see another freak that is functional is actually a relief."

Of course, given that the collection is a sort of gothic wonderland — not unlike the magical book in his Oscar-nominated classic, Pan's Labyrinth — del Toro noted with a laugh, "It gets better to the point that you can be a freak with a house full of monsters. I don’t know if it gets better, really, but it goes there."

Cabinet of Curiosities also serves as a sort of guide for aspiring filmmakers, providing them with insight into how a master of both genre and storytelling works. In the interest of public knowledge — and brevity — del Toro shared with BuzzFeed what he thinks are the five most important keys to making a great movie.