The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

Author(s): Olivia Laing

Sociology | New York

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.

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
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 * *


Product Information

Shortlisted for Gordon Burn Prize 2016.

Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. Her work appears in numerous publications, including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frieze and New York Times. She's a Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow and was 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library. Her first book, To the River, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. The Trip to Echo Spring was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Biography Award and the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize. The Lonely City has been shortlisted for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize. She lives in Cambridge.

General Fields

  • : 9781782111252
  • : A&U Canongate
  • : Canongate PBS
  • : 0.226
  • : March 2017
  • : 198mm X 129mm X 20mm
  • : March 2017
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Olivia Laing
  • : Paperback
  • : English
  • : 828.9203
  • : 9 b&w illustrations on text paper