Read this when
The Lonely City
Lonely in a city of millions? Olivia Laing was too, so she spent a year with Hopper, Warhol and Wojnarowicz instead of pretending she wasn't.
Who it's for
Laing arrives in New York in her thirties after a relationship she moved for falls apart, and finds herself painfully alone in sublets, spending long hours online.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Olivia Laing's 2016 book blends memoir, biography and art criticism, written after she found herself living alone in New York following the end of a relationship. Each chapter starts from her own experience of loneliness in the city and then explores how artists, among them Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz and Henry Darger, lived with isolation and made it part of their work.
Where to find it
In print (Picador) and widely available; libraries (Libby/Hoopla); audiobook available.
Before you start
Heads up: AIDS deaths and homophobia.
Age: Ages 16+
Once we dreamt that we were strangers. We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds, no. 9
