Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows.
Buy new:
$26.89
FREE delivery Wednesday, July 9 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon
Sold by: Billionzabooks
$26.89
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Wednesday, July 9 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Monday, July 7. Order within 17 hrs 53 mins.
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$26.89 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$26.89
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon
Amazon
Ships from
Amazon
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$13.95
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Very slight damage to book sleeve. Very slight damage to book sleeve. See less
FREE delivery Wednesday, July 9 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Monday, July 7. Order within 17 hrs 53 mins.
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$26.89 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$26.89
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Olivia Laing
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency Hardcover – May 12, 2020

by Olivia Laing (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 356 ratings
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$26.89","priceAmount":26.89,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"26","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"89","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"SoG5UGLJxVm7Ikh17WnjPMPi2CiXCgvnnT9j5wgRBsJAibQ45LxJExzETsjD6w61l7pWHHInR4E0moWBTyjquVYnoVeGC9rdpPAfIo5rdsfuQI0IkKobeqmyuxuToZo7fvbZKsjwWMKlU%2B0QlW5b%2BpawiETyKFJdB%2FVDg2qTLuA0cESsw%2Fmi6ibHG0IIKGgZ","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$13.95","priceAmount":13.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"SoG5UGLJxVm7Ikh17WnjPMPi2CiXCgvnaGo%2FqUWmH%2BpPMxz8lqcxgjfXXXxVav6P2Nu%2BJ1m%2BJN1jCLmrwDlgCjqvZVxvRji3WG5M3Ibckvf9wgYiMlZtOKrc7BVfK5qFoa8pKJmqrtO%2FUuflKQ3RtCamtEAm%2FBa%2BKzio5S%2B%2BV0tml8NtEdOnYVLcB3v%2BDhpZ","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

"One of the finest writers of the new nonfiction" (Harper’s Bazaar) explores the role of art in our tumultuous modern era.

In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century.

Funny Weather brings together a career’s worth of Laing’s writing about art and culture, examining their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keeffe, reads Maggie Nelson and Sally Rooney, writes love letters to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, she celebrates art as a force of resistance and repair, an antidote to a frightening political time.

We’re often told that art can’t change anything. Laing argues that it can. Art changes how we see the world. It makes plain inequalities and it offers fertile new ways of living.

Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    May 12, 2020
  5. Dimensions
    5.8 x 1.3 x 8.6 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    132400570X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1324005704
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.
View Kindle Edition

Frequently bought together

Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
This item: Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency
$26.89
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Jul 9
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Sold by Billionzabooks and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
+
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise
$16.40
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Jul 9
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
One of these items ships sooner than the other.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

From the Publisher

FUNNY WEATHER

funny weather

funny weather

funny weather

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These essays showcase Laing as an imaginative and empathetic critic of the arts. She gets at texture, technique, feeling, and politics all at once... It's a pleasure to follow Laing as she pokes around companionably, examining the things that interest her."
― Annalisa Quinn, NPR

"[Olivia Laing is] a kind of cultural sage...an accidental literary grande dame of the emotional havoc wrought by late capitalism and digital disconnect... Laing is radically empathetic, a writer-activist."
― Hillary Kelly, Vulture

"Laing’s arts writing is sharp-minded, and her manner is generous toward both subject and reader."
― John Glassie, Washington Post

"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."
― Alina Cohen, Observer

"As exterior life shuts temporarily down, Funny Weather is an immensely useful reminder that new space can be intellectual as well as physical... Laing is a tremendously gifted genre-mixer... Funny Weather is an invitation to Laing’s imaginary museum, where minds if not bodies meet, and where true hospitality resides."
― Lily Meyer, Hyperallergic

"Laing opens each piece with a deceptive ease [and] alights upon poetic insights... [H]er light touch throughout these essays makes room for some stunning perceptions."
― A. V. Club

"Like all great critics, Olivia Laing combines formidable intelligence with boundless curiosity and fabulous taste, but she also has a rare quality of intimacy; an ability to connect the reader to a work of art or literature (or for that matter a facet of life itself) with a directness that lights it up like nothing else. It’s why I read her."
― James Lasdun, author of Afternoon of a Faun

"A fine writer’s embrace of the artists who preceded her, friendly visits with their lives, and loving acknowledgement of their foundational contributions. A work of joy in recognition."
― Sarah Schulman, author of Conflict Is Not Abuse

"I yield to absolutely no one in my admiration of Olivia Laing; her essays are magical liberations of words and ideas, art and love; they’re the essence of great twenty-first century literature: brilliantly expressed, wildly uncontained, willful, and wonderfully unbound."
― Philip Hoare, author of RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR

About the Author

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. She is the author of seven books, including The Lonely City, Funny Weather, and Everybody. Her first novel, Crudo, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and won the 2019 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages and in 2018 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for nonfiction. She lives in Suffolk, England.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 12, 2020
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 132400570X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324005704
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.3 x 8.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 356 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They're the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller, The Garden Against Time. Their first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Prize and in they were awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in nonfiction. Their work has been translated into twenty-one languages. Their new novel, The Silver Book, will be published in November 2025.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
356 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review
Weird grease or oil on my copy?
3 out of 5 stars
Weird grease or oil on my copy?
I love this book, and I think Olivia Laing is brilliant. However, my copy seems to be damaged, and when I opened the amazon box, the book appeared to be partially soaked in grease or oil of some sort? Very strange.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Akinla
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great read.
    Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2021
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Touches on many aspects of O. Laing’s work. A summer or fall read for you favorite art nerd.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Learned new thoughts and people page after page...
    Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2020
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Tremendous writing; filled with great ideas and observations.
    Helpful
     Report
  • matty creen
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great
    Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2020
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Really my only criticism is I wish there were more people of color or trans people. Clear and crisp writing
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Jeff LeVine
    3.0 out of 5 stars Olivia makes the case for the importance of art
    Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Just a collection of articles written over not too long ago, mostly in the last five years, mostly on the subject of art, artists and authors. Most of the pieces are fairly short, sometimes too short - the best ones you definitely wish were longer. Most of the essays are finely written and insightful. There’s some overlap with her much better (from what I remember), earlier book, The Lonely City. There’s also some essays in this book that overlap with essays in this book, covering the same topic, or repeating the same anecdote, which is unfortunate. Laing also spends some time writing about very well covered 20th century artists, like Basquiat, Hockney and O’Keeffe, and while I thought those types of essays were well done, I’m not sure how much they were needed? I think I enjoyed the essays about authors and especially the more personal essays the best, like sitting to have her portrait painted by Chantal Joffe, or visiting Ali Smith. Over the course of the book, you really get a sense of Olivia Laing as a true believer in the power of art, but I gotta say, when I finished the book, I didn’t feel totally convinced myself.
    12 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amazon Customer
    1.0 out of 5 stars I would advise against buying this book.
    Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2020
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    This book is not what it appears to be. The description and title describe it as defending art in these insane times, illustrating it’s importance in the face of unprecedented absurdity. However, it’s just a series of essays on art or artists and does not go into what it claims to set out to achieve in the forward. Instead, it’s flat out boring. Not once was I moved by any of it and not once does she defend art. The only thing I gleaned from it was some the artists I hadn’t heard about that were showcased, yet it just made me want to experience those original works and not these mostly bland description. It’s like the author had compiled a few years worth of essays for the Guardian or the NYT’s and stuck a title on it that would sell more copies, replete with Wojnarowicz’s urgent photo piece on the cover. I’ve never bought a book where I feel as though I’ve been had, all for the price of nearly $30. Sucks. Don’t waste your money. She goes so far as to end it almost in cringe with “love letters” to the likes of Bowie and Arthur Russell, and somehow makes them boring. Maybe if it was presented for what it actually is, a plain collection of art essays, I wouldn’t be as scathing. But if that were the case, I wouldn’t have purchased it. Sucks.
    34 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Ty B
    2.0 out of 5 stars Not too good
    Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    I love nonfiction and couldn’t wait for this. It put me to sleep, multiple times. It’s unfortunately just not that good.
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Clark Goldsberry
    3.0 out of 5 stars Weird grease or oil on my copy?
    Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2020
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I love this book, and I think Olivia Laing is brilliant. However, my copy seems to be damaged, and when I opened the amazon box, the book appeared to be partially soaked in grease or oil of some sort? Very strange.
    Customer image
    Clark Goldsberry
    3.0 out of 5 stars
    Weird grease or oil on my copy?

    Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2020
    I love this book, and I think Olivia Laing is brilliant. However, my copy seems to be damaged, and when I opened the amazon box, the book appeared to be partially soaked in grease or oil of some sort? Very strange.
    Images in this review
    Customer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer image
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • Shrestha Mukherjee
    3.0 out of 5 stars Thought-Provoking but Uneven Read – Great Condition
    Reviewed in India on February 6, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Olivia Laing’s Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency is an insightful yet uneven meditation on the role of art in turbulent times. I was drawn to the premise—how creativity can be a lifeline in moments of political and personal crisis—but found myself wavering between admiration and frustration.

    Laing’s essays, a mix of cultural criticism and personal reflection, celebrate artists and writers who have challenged norms and shaped discourse. Her pieces on David Wojnarowicz and Derek Jarman are particularly compelling, capturing the urgency of their work. At times, though, the book feels more like a collection of loosely connected musings rather than a cohesive argument. Some essays struck me as deeply resonant, while others felt like they skimmed the surface, leaving me wanting more depth.

    That said, the book itself arrived in perfect condition—no creases, folds, or damage. The print quality is good, and it’s a nice edition to have. While Funny Weather offers valuable reflections on resilience and artistic defiance, it didn’t fully satisfy me as a unified work. A thoughtful read, but one that I appreciated more in parts than as a whole.
    Customer image
    Shrestha Mukherjee
    3.0 out of 5 stars
    Thought-Provoking but Uneven Read – Great Condition

    Reviewed in India on February 6, 2025
    Olivia Laing’s Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency is an insightful yet uneven meditation on the role of art in turbulent times. I was drawn to the premise—how creativity can be a lifeline in moments of political and personal crisis—but found myself wavering between admiration and frustration.

    Laing’s essays, a mix of cultural criticism and personal reflection, celebrate artists and writers who have challenged norms and shaped discourse. Her pieces on David Wojnarowicz and Derek Jarman are particularly compelling, capturing the urgency of their work. At times, though, the book feels more like a collection of loosely connected musings rather than a cohesive argument. Some essays struck me as deeply resonant, while others felt like they skimmed the surface, leaving me wanting more depth.

    That said, the book itself arrived in perfect condition—no creases, folds, or damage. The print quality is good, and it’s a nice edition to have. While Funny Weather offers valuable reflections on resilience and artistic defiance, it didn’t fully satisfy me as a unified work. A thoughtful read, but one that I appreciated more in parts than as a whole.
    Images in this review
    Customer image
    Report
  • Cliente Amazon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Laing sempre vale a pena ler
    Reviewed in Brazil on September 11, 2021
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Laing é uma escritora maravilhosa, que conta histórias sobre as vidas de artistas com nuancias e envolvimento. Sempre apresenta também aspectos biográficos sobre os quais pouco se lê.
    Report
  • Dave McVane
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very readable, perceptive criticism
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    A collection of essays on art and culture, focusing mainly on avant garde and experimental artists and writers, although there are some essays on more mainstream figures. Laing is a wonderful writer: she has a strong, lucid style, and an intelligent take on most things. I enjoyed it particularly because it introduced me to stuff I didn't know much about, and reminded me of things I'd forgotten!
    Report
  • Racquel
    5.0 out of 5 stars Olivia Laing
    Reviewed in Australia on December 29, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    One of her best book. Give it as a gift. Happy purchasing it as it’s expensive in other shops
    Report
  • Deep Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant anthology on modern artistic movements
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    As ever with this author, beautiful writing from a socially Left-Liberal point of view. To be read by all.
    Report