Funny Weather: Art In An Emergency

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.

'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.

'A brave writer whose books open up fundamental questions about life and art' - Telegraph

'A thought-provoking, inspiring collection that you can go back to whenever the weather takes a funny turn' - Evening Standard

'Funny Weather gives the reader a tangible sense of the sprawling garden of work which Laing has planted. She is to the art world what David Attenborough is to nature: a worthy guide with both a macro and micro vision, fluent in her chosen tongue and always full of empathy and awe' - Irish Times

'Laing has acted as a kind of cultural sage for the past four years, an accidental literary grande dame of the emotional havoc wrought by late capitalism and digital disconnect' - New York Magazine

'Laing writes of her creative subjects in a winning, passionate voice that proves both soothing and galvanizing, especially amid a panic . . . It’s not just art we need in an emergency, but writers, like Laing, who gently guide our eyes to what’s out there' - Observer

'Laing combines passion and curiosity in a collection of art-based essays and profiles that reflect the uncertainty of our age' - Guardian

'Never has a publication been more timely' - Dazed

'The book to help you make sense of the world . . . [a] mesmerizing collection of essays . . . this unique and compassionate book is a mind-expanding opportunity to rethink how we live, and what we can do to change things for the better.' - Stylist

'A light-footed tour of enriching stories, lives, and ideas' - Dazed and Confused

'Her gift as a critic is her ability to imaginatively sympathize with her subjects in a way that allows the art and life of the artist to go on radiating meaning after the book is closed' - Elle

'An incivisive meditation on the value of heartfelt, messy art in our paranoid times' - Telegraph

'It’s not just art we need in an emergency, but writers, like Laing, who gently guide our eyes to what’s out there' - Observer

'Vibrant commentary on art and society by a writer with a sharp eye for the offbeat' - Kirkus

'Laing’s essays are urgent, compassionate, enlivening and acutely perceptive, and that’s true whether or not we encounter them “in an emergency”' - the arts desk

'Her words seem balefully accurate, given what has now overtaken us' - Financial Times

'Laing is an intelligent and acute writer, and this book is certainly interesting and assuredly well-written' - Scotsman

'Laing’s arts writing is sharp-minded, and her manner is generous toward both subject and reader' - Washington Post

SPECIFICATIONS:

Author:Olivia Lang - Оливия Лэнг

Publisher:Pan Macmillan

Language:English

Publication Date:2021

Number of pages:368 pst

Format:Paperback

Width:130 mm / 5,1'

Height:196 mm / 7,7'

Weight:264 g

ISBN:9781529027655