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The Lonely City
Olivia Laing
€ 14.99
€ 11.46
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Description for The Lonely City
Paperback. A dazzling investigation into loneliness, art and the modern city - 'A fierce and essential work' Helen Macdonald. Num Pages: 336 pages, 9 b&w illustrations on text paper. BIC Classification: BM; DN; JMH. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 131 x 198 x 22. Weight in Grams: 258.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 GORDON BURN PRIZE CHOSEN AS 'BOOK OF THE YEAR' BY Observer Guardian Telegraph Irish Times New Statesman Times Literary Supplement Herald 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.
Product Details
Publisher
Canongate Books
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2017
Condition
New
Number of Pages
336
Place of Publication
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
ISBN
9781782111252
SKU
V9781782111252
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
Ref
99-98
About Olivia Laing
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.
Reviews for The Lonely City
Triumphant . . . a brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art
Telegraph
Wonderfully freewheeling . . . constantly surprising . . . inspired
Guardian
Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . a fierce and essential work
HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk Unusually brave . . . Sublime
The Times
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 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
Telegraph
Wonderfully freewheeling . . . constantly surprising . . . inspired
Guardian
Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . a fierce and essential work
HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk Unusually brave . . . Sublime
The Times
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 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