The Lonely City, Olivia Laing
The Lonely City, Olivia Laing
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
Club: $11.47

The Lonely City
Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

Author: Olivia Laing

Narrator: Susan Lyons

Unabridged: 9 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/21/2016

Synopsis

An expertly crafted work of reportage, memoir, and biography on the subject of loneliness told through the lives of six iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring. You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by thousands of strangers. The Lonely City is a roving cultural history of urban loneliness, centered on the ultimate city: Manhattan, that teeming island of gneiss, concrete, and glass.What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live if we’re not intimately involved with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if our sexuality or physical body is considered deviant or damaged? Does technology draw us closer together or trap us behind screens?Olivia Laing explores these questions by traveling deep into the work and lives of some of the century’s most original artists, among them Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Edward Hopper, Henry Darger, and Klaus Nomi. Part memoir, part biography, part dazzling work of cultural criticism, The Lonely City is not just a map, but a celebration of the state of loneliness. It’s a voyage out to a strange and sometimes lovely island, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but visited by many—millions, say—of souls.

About Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing, a widely acclaimed writer and critic, is the author of seven books, including her first novel, Crudo, which was a London Sunday Times bestseller and winner of the 2019 James Tait Memorial Prize. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages, and in 2018 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for nonfiction.

About Susan Lyons

Susan Lyons has appeared on numerous television shows, including A Country Practice, Police Rescue, Something in the Air, and All Saints. Among her film credits are Winds of Jarrah and In a Savage Land. She is married to Tony Award–winning actor Jefferson Mays.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter

What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. As a person who spends a fair amount of time by himself, I was drawn to the subject matter of this book. I would say that I'm very comfortable in my own company but th......more

Goodreads review by Nada

لا أعلم لماذا يعتقد الناس ان الجحيم هو مكان حار يحترق فيه كل شئ. هذا ليس جحيما. الجحيم هو أن تكون محاصرًا في عزلتك في كتلة من التلج. هذا ما مررت به.......more

Goodreads review by Candi

“You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people… mere physical proximity is not enough to dispel a sense of internal isolation… Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness......more

Quotes

“An impressive and beguiling combination of autobiography and biography, a balancing act that Laing effortlessly performs.” Elle

“Every page of The Lonely City exudes a disarming, deep-down fondness for humanity.” Wall Street Journal

“A beautiful meander of a book.” New Yorker

“Laing…picks up the topic of painful urban isolation and sets it down in many smart and oddly consoling places. She makes the topic her own.” New York Times

“Reminding us of how it feels to be lonely, this book gently affirms our connectedness.” Boston Globe

“An uncommonly observant hybrid of memoir, history, and cultural criticism.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Her book succeeds in offering its readers a redemptive experience comparable to the one she’s describing…This triumphant book is in part an appeal for us to value the kind of loneliness that can be rendered, by the intimacy of art, both tolerable and shareable.” Daily Telegraph (London)

“[An] acute, nervy and personal investigation into urban solitude…A group biography all in one, which takes a difficult, almost taboo, subject and deftly turns it over anew.” New Statesman

“Laing joins the ever-growing pool of writers…who are transforming memoir into a daring and dynamic literary form of discovery.” Booklist (starred review)

“Laing creates a ‘map of loneliness,’ tracking its often-paradoxical contours in her own life as a transplant to New York City and traces how loneliness can inspire creativity…She invents new ways to consider how isolation plays into art or even the Internet (which turns her into an obsessed teenager, albeit one who calls the screen her ‘cathected silver lover’). For once, loneliness becomes a place worth lingering.” Publishers Weekly

Awards

  • BookPage Top Pick
  • New York Times   Bestseller
  • Gordon Burn Prize
  • Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
  • Elle Magazine Pick
  • Goodreads Readers’ Choice
  • NPR Best Book
  • Newsweek Best Book
  • Marie Claire Magazine Pick
  • National Book Critics Circle Award
  • Bustle Pick
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