Author Guide · Literary Non-fiction
Books Written by
In their mid-thirties Olivia Laing moved to New York, was left on their own there when a relationship ended, and spent the following months looking at Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Andy Warhol’s time capsules. That became The Lonely City (2016). Before it, Laing had walked the River Ouse in Sussex, where Virginia Woolf drowned, and crossed America in search of six writers who drank. After it came a novel written in about six weeks, a book about the body and freedom, a restored garden in Suffolk and a second novel set in 1970s Italian cinema. Their books have been translated into twenty-one languages. This guide covers their eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 2011–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Olivia Laing’s best-known books are The Lonely City (2016), about loneliness and art in New York, The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), the novel Crudo (2018), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and The Garden Against Time (2024). Start with The Lonely City; read on for the order of all eight key books and where the novels fit.
Where to Start with Olivia Laing
If you want their defining book
→ The Lonely City (2016) — loneliness, New York and the artists who lived it.
If you want literary biography
→ The Trip to Echo Spring (2013) — six American writers and their drinking.
If you want a novel
→ Crudo (2018) — short, fast and written in about six weeks.
If you want gardens and history
→ The Garden Against Time (2024) — a Suffolk garden and the long story of paradise.
8 Olivia Laing Books, in Order
To the River
Over about a week one midsummer, Laing walks the River Ouse in Sussex from its source near Haywards Heath to the sea at Newhaven. Virginia Woolf drowned herself in the Ouse in 1941, and her life runs through the book alongside the river’s history, myths and literature. It was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Dolman Best Travel Book Award.
The Trip to Echo Spring
A journey across the United States, from Key West to Puget Sound, through the lives of six writers who drank: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever and Raymond Carver. Laing also writes about growing up in an alcoholic family. It was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Gordon Burn Prize.
The Lonely City
Alone in New York in their mid-thirties, Laing looks at loneliness through the work and lives of Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Henry Darger and David Wojnarowicz, whose art was bound up with AIDS activism, with the singer Klaus Nomi among others. The book also asks whether technology connects people or isolates them. It was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and the Gordon Burn Prize, and a tenth-anniversary edition adds a new afterword.
Crudo
Laing’s first novel follows a writer who is what Laing called a “hybrid Frankenstein composite” of themselves and the American writer Kathy Acker, against the news of the day. Laing wrote it in about six weeks, with rules to write every day and not edit. It was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize.
Funny Weather
A collection of essays and reviews written during the years of Brexit, Trump and the climate crisis, including Laing’s “Funny Weather” columns for the art magazine frieze, book criticism, profiles of living women and short lives of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Agnes Martin.
Everybody
A book about the body and freedom built around the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, whose life runs alongside those of Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Bayard Rustin, Christopher Isherwood, Agnes Martin, Andrea Dworkin, Susan Sontag and others. Laing mixes biography and criticism with their own experience, including growing up in a lesbian family under Section 28 and their training as a herbalist.
The Garden Against Time
In 2020 Laing and their husband, the poet Ian Patterson, bought a house in Suffolk with a walled garden designed by the landscape designer Mark Rumary, and set about restoring it. The book moves from that work to the history of paradise in English gardens, from Milton and William Morris to Derek Jarman, and to the money from slavery behind many great estates. It was a Sunday Times number one bestseller and was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize, the Kirkus Prize and Waterstones Book of the Year.
The Silver Book
In autumn 1974 Nicholas, a 22-year-old English art student, flees London for Venice and begins an affair with Danilo Donati, the costume and production designer who worked with Fellini and Pasolini. In Rome he watches Fellini’s Casanova stall, then follows Donati to the set of Pasolini’s Salò; the novel ends with Pasolini’s murder in 1975.
In What Order to Read Olivia Laing
None of Laing’s books depends on another, so you can start anywhere. Read in order, they show a clear line: three books that combine a journey or a place with the lives of other writers and artists, then a turn to fiction with Crudo, then two longer books on the body and on gardens, and a second, more traditional novel.
The three non-fiction books of 2013 to 2021 work as a loose trilogy of subjects, drink, loneliness and the body, each told through other people’s lives. Funny Weather is the easiest to dip into, since its essays are short and stand alone.
A reading path
1. The Lonely City (2016)
2. The Trip to Echo Spring (2013)
3. Crudo (2018)
4. Everybody (2021)
5. The Garden Against Time (2024)
Everything Else Olivia Laing Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Collaborations
1
1 book · 2025
- 2025Painting Writing Textinga decade of work with the painter Chantal Joffe
The years · 1977–2025
Quick facts about Olivia Laing
- Known for
- Olivia Laing is known for non-fiction that reads private experience, such as loneliness or drinking, through the lives and work of other artists and writers.
- 1977
- Born; grows up in Chalfont St Peter
- 2016
- The Lonely City
- 2025
- The Silver Book
- Born
- 1977; grew up in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
- Education
- Studied English at the University of Sussex, left to join a road protest; later trained as a medical herbalist
- Worked
- Deputy books editor of The Observer, 2007–2009
- Married
- The poet and academic Ian Patterson, in 2017
- Honours
- Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction (2018), James Tait Black Memorial Prize (2019), Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2019), Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts (2025)
- Translated
- Into twenty-one languages
The red mark is 2016: The Lonely City, their book about loneliness and art in New York.
How Olivia Laing Writes: Other Lives as a Lens
Laing’s non-fiction usually starts from their own situation, a walk, a period alone in New York, a garden to restore, and then widens through the lives of others: Woolf on the Ouse, six drinking writers, Hopper and Warhol, Wilhelm Reich. The personal parts stay short; most of each book is biography, close reading of art and social history.
They write as a critic as much as a memoirist. Years of art writing, for frieze and in catalogue essays on David Hockney, Derek Jarman, Agnes Martin, Wolfgang Tillmans and Andy Warhol, show in how closely they describe paintings and objects, and in their recurring argument that private feeling has public causes: “Loneliness is personal, and it is also political.”
The fiction works differently in each case. Crudo was written fast and left unedited on purpose, mixing Laing’s life with Kathy Acker’s and with the news. The Silver Book is a slower historical novel built on real people and a real murder, closer to the research of the non-fiction.
Frequently asked questions about Olivia Laing’s books
How many books has Olivia Laing written?
Nine. Eight are the key books on this page, from To the River (2011) to The Silver Book (2025); the ninth is Painting Writing Texting (2025), a record of a decade of work with the painter Chantal Joffe.
What are Olivia Laing’s books in order?
To the River (2011), The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), The Lonely City (2016), Crudo (2018), Funny Weather (2020), Everybody (2021), The Garden Against Time (2024) and The Silver Book (2025).
Where should I start with Olivia Laing?
The Lonely City (2016), which shows their method at its clearest: a personal period of loneliness in New York read through the lives of Hopper, Warhol, Darger and Wojnarowicz. If you prefer fiction, Crudo is short.
What is Olivia Laing’s most famous book?
The Lonely City (2016), an international bestseller shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. The Garden Against Time (2024) was a Sunday Times number one bestseller.
Has Olivia Laing written novels?
Two: Crudo (2018), which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2019, and The Silver Book (2025), set in Italian cinema in 1974 and 1975.
What is Crudo about?
A writer whom Laing built from themselves and the American writer Kathy Acker, set against the news of the day. Laing wrote it in about six weeks without editing.
What is The Silver Book about?
Nicholas, a young English art student, who in 1974 begins an affair with the Italian costume designer Danilo Donati and follows him to the sets of Fellini’s Casanova and Pasolini’s Salò. It ends with Pasolini’s murder in 1975.
What pronouns does Olivia Laing use?
They/them. Laing is non-binary and has written about it, including in Everybody (2021).
Who is Olivia Laing married to?
The poet and academic Ian Patterson, whom they married in 2017. The two bought the house and garden in Suffolk described in The Garden Against Time in 2020.
What prizes has Olivia Laing won?
The Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction (2018) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crudo (2019). They are a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Footnotes
- Olivia Laing — Wikipedia
- About — olivialaing.com
- Crudo (novel) — Wikipedia
- ‘Lonely City’ is more than a cry for connection — NPR, 2016
- Everybody review — New Statesman, 2021
- The Silver Book — Kirkus Reviews, 2025
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Loneliness is personal, and it is also political.”
— Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (2016)
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