'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art' – Telegraph
In this inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a vivid and politically-engaged case for the importance of art – especially in the turbulent weather of the twenty-first century.
We are often told art can't change anything. In Funny Weather, Laing argues that it can. It changes how we see the world, it exposes inequality, and it offers fertile new ways of living.
Across a diverse selection of essays, Laing profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O'Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body.
Written with originality and compassion, Funny Weather is a celebration of art as a force of resistance and repair – and as an antidote to a frightening political moment.
Olivia Laing is the author of three acclaimed works of non-fiction. To the River was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year. The Trip to Echo Spring was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize. The Lonely City won the Eccles British Library Writer's Award, was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and has been translated into fifteen languages. Her first novel, Crudo, was published in 2018 to great critical acclaim. It was a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Goldsmiths Prize. In 2018 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction.
Laing writes on art and culture for many publications, including the Guardian, New Statesman, New York Times and Frieze. She is working on Everybody, an ambitious cultural survey of embodiment in the modern age. Olivia Laing, prize-winning, bestselling author of The Lonely City and Crudo, returns with a career-spanning collection of essays on the power of art in times of crisis.
