The Lonely City

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 Wonderfully freewheeling . . . Constantly surprising . . . Inspired * * Guardian * * 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 A new kind of literature . . . Endlessly, compulsively fascinating * * New Statesman * * Unusually brave . . . Sublime * * The Times * * Laing cuts close to the bone of a universal yet often unrelatable state * * Financial Times * * A gifted critic and biographer . . . a fascinating, eerie piece of writing * * Sunday Times * * One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction . . . Compelling and original * * Harpers Bazaar * * Exhilarating . . . beautifully integrated, original, compassionate * * Independent * * 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 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 * * 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 * * 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 connectedness * * Boston Globe * * Connecting becomes less intimidating if the fear of failure is removed. This brave book is a step in that direction * * Economist * * Intensely involving and affecting . . . Laing's superb study extends far beyond art criticism * * 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 * *

Olivia Laing is the author of four acclaimed works of non-fiction, To the River (2011), The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), The Lonely City (2016) and Everybody (2021). Her first novel, Crudo, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and won the 2019 James Tait Memorial Prize. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2018 was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Her work has been translated into 19 languages. Laing writes on art and culture for many publications, including the Guardian, Financial Times and New York Times. Her collected writing on art, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, was published in 2020. She lives in Suffolk. Instagram: @olivialanguage | olivialaing.com