The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone - Softcover

Laing, Olivia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782111255 ISBN 13: 9781782111252

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2017

Synopsis

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 GORDON BURN PRIZE

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between the works and lives of some of the city's most compelling artists, Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.

About this title

Review

"Triumphant . . . a brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art" (Telegraph)

"Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . a fierce and essential work" (HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk)

"Unusually brave . . . Sublime" (The Times)

"Wonderfully freewheeling . . . constantly surprising . . . inspired" (Guardian)

"A new kind of literature . . . Endlessly, compulsively fascinating" (New Statesman)

"Laing cuts close to the bone of a universal yet often unrelatable state" (Financial Times)

""One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction . . . Compelling and original" (Harpers Bazaar)

"The Lonely City is continually unexpected, stimulating and beautifully structured. I am in awe of Olivia Laing's insights, braininess and that something that feels like recklessness until it lands" (PETER CAREY)

"A remarkable combination of personal mediation and psychological and artistic inquiry, The Lonely City is always superbly written, fascinating and often sharply moving. Ultimately the book has a paradoxical effect: at the same time as it makes one aware of one's own inescapable solitude, it leaves one feeling less alone" (ADAM FOULDS, author of The Quickening Maze)

"The Lonely City is a stunning homage to how extreme loneliness can make us more hospitable to the strangeness of others - to the risks and innovations of art and artists. Laing has written a classic that will be cherished for years to come" (DEBORAH LEVY, author of Swimming Home)

"Exhilarating . . . beautifully integrated, original, compassionate" (MICHELE ROBERTS Independent)

"A gifted critic and biographer . . . a fascinating, eerie piece of writing" (Sunday Times)

"Smart and oddly consoling . . . Laing makes the topic her own" (New York Times Book Review)

"Considered, authoritative, evocative, empathetic, and full of insight . . . To join Laing in that atmosphere is to enter a world that is at once dark and lambent, and in which loneliness features not just as an eternal fall, but as one of the treasures of what it is to be fully, briefly, human" (MATTHEW ADAMS The National)

"Blisteringly precise . . . Her gift as a critic is her ability to imaginatively sympathize with her subjects in a way that allows the art and life of the artist to go on radiating meaning after the book is closed" (Elle)

"An uncommonly observant hybrid of memoir, history and cultural criticism . . . a book of extraordinary compassion and insight" (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Remarkable . . . a memoir, an essay and a group biography all in one, which takes a difficult, almost taboo subject and deftly turns it over anew" (Evening Standard)

"A devastating and intimate examination of urban loneliness. With a unique voice, and painstaking research, Laing explores the dark side of our cities as well as the redemptive power of communities" (GAVIN FRANCIS, author of Adventures in Human Being)

"Accessible, bright and endlessly thought-provoking . . . a commentator of exceptional heart and voice" (Irish Independent)

"Magical . . . reminding us of how it feels to be lonely, this book gently affirms our --Economist

"Intensely involving and affecting . . . Laing's superb study extends far beyond art criticism" (The Lady) --The Lady

"Part memoir, part treatise on art and geography, Olivia Laing's book looks at loneliness and how public spaces and especially art can cure or calm this very modern condition" (Red) --Red

From the Author

Olivia Laing is a writer and critic. Her first book, To the River (2011) is the story of a midsummer journey down the river Virginia Woolf drowned in. It was a book of the year in the Evening Standard, Independent and Financial Times and was shortlisted for the 2012 Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Her second, The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), explores the liquid links between writers and alcohol. Hilary Mantel described it as 'one of the best books I've read on the creative uses of adversity'. It was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize, and was a book of the year in the New York Times, Time, Observer, Times, Economist and Statesman. Her new book, The Lonely City (2016), is an investigation into loneliness by way of art, including Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper and David Wojnarowicz. Peter Carey described it as "continually unexpected, stimulating and beautifully structured." Laing has been the deputy books editor of the Observer, and writes for The Guardian, New York Times, Frieze and New Statesman among other publications. She is a MacDowell and Yaddo Fellow, was 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library.and has received grants from the Arts Council and the Authors’ Foundation. She lives in Cambridge, England.

Edition details

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1782111255
• ISBN 13: 9781782111252
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336