The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
- ISBN-10
- 1250039576
- ISBN-13
- 9781250039576
- Category
- Art
- Pages
- 336
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2016-03-01
- Publisher
- Macmillan
- Author
- Olivia Laing
Description
"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 travelling 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"--
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2016-03-03
- 284 pages
- Paperback
- Canongate Books
Similar books
-
Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
By Olivia LaingIn this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century.
-
Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles
By Rosecrans BaldwinBaldwin records the stories of countless Angelenos, discovering people both upended and reborn: by disasters natural and economic, following gospels of wealth or self-help or personal destiny.
-
Girl Reading: A Novel
By Katie WardDazzlingly inventive, this is “a fascinating testament to the universal themes of art and literature and the spirit of femininity” (BookPage).
-
Everybody: A Book about Freedom
By Olivia Laing"Astute and consistently surprising critic" (NPR) Olivia Laing investigates the body and its discontents through the great freedom movements of the twentieth century.
-
Multitudes
By Lucy CaldwellI'd already decided that after tonight I wasn't going to be friends with Jacqueline Dunne any more. * After she's finished chucking up, we set off back to hers. She's so weak it takes us almost an hour to get there, a walk that should ...
-
A Lonely Man: A Novel
By Chris PowerThrough an elegant existential game of cat and mouse, Chris Power’s A Lonely Man depicts an attempt to create art at the cost of empathy. Robert must decide what is his for the taking—and whether some stories are too dangerous to tell.
-
Confessions of a Wall Street Insider: A Cautionary Tale of Rats, Feds, and Banksters
By Michael KimelmanWhen they ran out of specifics, a woman with the NY Post pondered what it must be like for Reed Brodsky's wife to have given birth to her first child while he was spending eighteen hours a day on a case.
-
Native America: A History
By Michael Leroy ObergPresents an innovative approach to Native American history by placing individual native communities and their experiences at the center of the study Following a first chapter that deals with creation myths, the remainder of the narrative is ...
-
The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking
By Olivia LaingOlivia Laing's captivating exploration of alcoholism and literature; 'beguiling, beautifully written . . . brilliant and original' - Sunday Times
-
The Cities Book
By Karla Zimmerman, Bridget Gleeson, Hugh McNaughtanEach page is packed with facts on city living - from food and festivals to architecture and history. This stunning compendium of cities is the perfect gift for curious kids everywhere.