Author(s): Laura Waddell; Christopher Schaberg (Series edited by); Ian Bogost (Series edited by)

Society

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

Exits are all around us. They are the difference between travelling and arriving, being on the inside or outside. Whether signposted or subversive, personal or political, choices or holes we've fallen through, exits determine how we move around our lives, cities, and the world. What does it really mean to 'exit'? In these meditations on exits in architecture, transport, ancestry, language, garbage, death, Sesame Street and Brexit, Laura Waddell follows the neon and the pictograms of exit signs to see what's on the other side. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

Review: An incredible writer. Exit is wondrous, cleverly and movingly encouraging us to think of the ordinary in new and challenging ways. As it happens, I read this brilliant book while pondering what an 'exit' from the coronavirus lockdown might look like, and the reminder that exits often lead to new and better beginnings was a welcome inspiration indeed. * Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland *
Writer, publisher and award-winning Scotsman columnist Laura Waddell straddles the tangible and the theoretical in her thoughtful contribution on exits. * The Scotsman *
From its timely nature and broad range of subjects, to the style in which it was written, I would highly recommend Exit, particularly to anyone looking to enjoy their first taste of the Object Lessons series. * The National *
Roaming from Glasgow to Kowloon Walled City, Laura Waddell's Exit is deft, compelling and deep; revealing the extent to which the political is always personal. There are no simple escapes in these studies of exclusion, entrapment and exile yet Waddell proves in the persuasive empathy and acuity of her writing that it is possible to throw open our windows to light and sound from outside, elsewhere, one another. * Darran Anderson, author of Imaginary Cities and Inventory *
Though physically small, its scope is at once sweeping and intimate, darting ably from urban spaces to individual case studies ... a consistent pleasure ... dazzling. * Review 31 *

Contents: Preface 1. Words Associated with Exit 2. After the World of My Own Language Sank 3. Some Poet Throwing Forked Lightning 4a. The History of Exit Signs 4b. The Poetics of Exit Design 4c. The Future of Exit Signs 5. Grouchland: Brexit, Sesame Street, and Garbage 6. Elevation 7. Evictions and Evacuations 8. Existential Exits 9. EXIT This Way Acknowledgements Notes Index

Author Biography: Laura Waddell is a writer and publisher based in Scotland. In 2019 she won a Write to End Violence Against Women Award for her column in the Scotsman newspaper. She currently sits on the editorial board of Gutter magazine. Her cultural criticism and fiction have appeared in the TLS, Guardian, Kinfolk, McSweeney's and several anthologies as well as on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Scotland. Exit is her first book.