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The Lonely City
Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
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The Lonely City
Narrated by:
Tilda Swinton, Olivia Laing
Buy Now for ₹667.71
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Narrated by:
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Tilda Swinton
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Olivia Laing
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Written by:
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Olivia Laing
Read by Tilda Swinton and Olivia Laing
‘Wonderful and necessary’ ANNE ENRIGHT ~ ‘Constantly surprising’ GUARDIAN ~ ‘Stunning’ DEBORAH LEVY ~ ‘Compulsively fascinating’ NEW STATESMAN ~ ‘Beautiful’ HANYA YANAGIHARA ~ ‘Daring and seductive NEW YORK TIMES ~ ‘Profound, unclassifiable’ GARTH GREENWELL ~ ‘Exhilarating’ INDEPENDENT ~ ‘Continually unexpected’ PETER CAREY ~ ‘Triumphant’ TELEGRAPH ~ ‘Luminously wise’ HELEN MACDONALD ~ ‘Unusually brave’ THE TIMES
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 some of its most compelling artists, illuminating loneliness in a whole new light.
The Lonely City is a celebration of that strange and lovely state, intrinsic to the very act of being alive. Hailed as ‘a new kind of literature’ when it was first published and selling over two hundred thousand copies, Olivia Laing’s dazzling book has been beloved by readers all over the world. Now, in this tenth anniversary edition, Laing reflects in a new afterword on how our experience of loneliness has changed over the course of a difficult decade.
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Critic Reviews
Triumphant . . . A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art
Luminously wise and deeply compassionate . . . A fierce and essential work (HELEN MACDONALD, author of H IS FOR HAWK)
Wonderfully freewheeling . . . Constantly surprising . . . Inspired
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)
A new kind of literature . . . Endlessly, compulsively fascinating
Unusually brave . . . Sublime
Laing cuts close to the bone of a universal yet often unrelatable state
A gifted critic and biographer . . . a fascinating, eerie piece of writing
One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction . . . Compelling and original
Exhilarating . . . beautifully integrated, original, compassionate
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