Shortlisted for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
What does it mean to be lonely?
How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens?
When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art.
Moving fluidly between works and lives – from Hopper’s Nighthawks to Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to David Wojnarowicz's AIDS activism – Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone.
Humane, provocative and moving, The Lonely City is a celebration of a strange state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.
‘One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction’ Harper’s Bazaar
Buy in the UK: Bookshop.org, LRB, Waterstones, Foyles, Amazon
Buy in the US: Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Indiebound, Macmillan
Dutch: De Bezige Bij / Spanish: Capitan Swing / Swedish: Daidalos / Brazil: Rocco / Turkish: Ithaki / Russian: Ad Marginem / Tawainese: Business Weekly / Chinese: United Sky / Korean: Across Publishing / Italian: Il Saggiatore / Slovak: Inaque / Hungarian: Corvina / Arabic: Kalemat / Polish: Czarne / Romanian: Curte Veche / Lithuanian: Kitos Knygos / German: Btb
Coming soon: Danish, French, Ukrainian, Finnish
Audiobook: Audible
Read: extracts in the Observer and BBC Culture, interviews with the New Yorker, Salon, Charlie Porter and Elle
Listen: interviews on Radio 3, Radio 4, 6 Music and the Guardian podcast.
Dance: if you're intrigued by The Lonely City’s music I made a playlist.
Book of the year: Guardian, Observer, Telegraph, Irish Times, New Statesman, Times Literary Supplement, Elle, Slate, Globe & Mail, Publishers Weekly, Brainpickings and NPR.
From the reviews...
‘A continually unexpected, stimulating, beautifully structured book. I am in awe of Olivia Laing’s insights, braininess, and that something that feels like recklessness until it lands.’ Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
‘Ferocious intellect and expansive sympathy are joined in this profound, unclassifiable study of art, urban space, and queerness of various kinds. Thrilling, consoling, essential, this is among the best and most moving books I’ve read in years.’ Garth Greenwell, What Belongs to You
‘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, Swimming Home
‘Luminously wise and deeply compassionate, The Lonely City is a fierce and essential work. Reading it made my heart ache yet filled me with hope for the world.’ Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk
‘Endlessly, compulsively fascinating… The Lonely City changes the way we think about art, the people who make it, and the price they pay.’ Philip Hoare, New Statesman
‘One of the most talented cultural critics of her generation…a brave, vulnerable book.’ Metro
‘Laing’s masterpiece… a layered and endlessly rewarding book, among the finest I have ever read.’ Maria Popova, Brain Pickings
‘An uncommonly observant hybrid of memoir, history and cultural criticism…a book of extraordinary compassion and insight.’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘Laing is an astute and consistently surprising culture critic…absolutely one of a kind.’ Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
‘This daring and seductive book – ostensibly about four artists, but actually about the universal struggle to be known – serves as both provocation and comfort, a secular prayer for those who are alone – meaning all of us.’ The New York Times Book Review