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

by Olivia Laing (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 327 ratings
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"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.

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Previous page
  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
  8. See all details
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From the Publisher

FUNNY WEATHER

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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 a widely acclaimed writer and critic. She’s 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 Memorial Prize. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages and in 2018 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. She lives in Suffolk, UK.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (May 12, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 132400570X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324005704
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 1.3 x 8.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 327 ratings

About the author

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Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing

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Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. She's the author of seven books, including To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring, The Lonely City and Everybody. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. Her first novel, Crudo, was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the James Tait Black Prize. Laing writes on art and culture for the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and New York Times, among many other publications. Her collected writing on art, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, was published in 2021. The recipient of the 2018 Windham-Campbell Prize in nonfiction, she lives in Suffolk, England. Her next book, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise, will be published in 2024.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
327 global ratings
Weird grease or oil on my copy?
3 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.
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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
Verified Purchase
Touches on many aspects of O. Laing’s work. A summer or fall read for you favorite art nerd.
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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
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Tremendous writing; filled with great ideas and observations.
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matty creen
4.0 out of 5 stars Great
Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2020
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Really my only criticism is I wish there were more people of color or trans people. Clear and crisp writing
4 people found this helpful
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Ty B
2.0 out of 5 stars Not too good
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2024
Verified Purchase
I love nonfiction and couldn’t wait for this. It put me to sleep, multiple times. It’s unfortunately just not that good.
One person found this helpful
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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
Verified 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.
11 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars I would advise against buying this book.
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2020
Verified 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.
29 people found this helpful
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Clark Goldsberry
3.0 out of 5 stars Weird grease or oil on my copy?
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2020
Verified 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.
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2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Laing sempre vale a pena ler
Reviewed in Brazil on September 11, 2021
Verified 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.
One person found this helpful
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Dave McVane
5.0 out of 5 stars Very readable, perceptive criticism
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2020
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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!
7 people found this helpful
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Gjorgji Despodov
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2022
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The most wonderful and DELICIOUSLY written book, each chapters draws a beautifully vivid portrait of an artist.
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HAT
5.0 out of 5 stars The most wonderful and deliciously written book, each chapters draws a vivid portrait of an artist.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 17, 2020
Verified Purchase
The most wonderful and DELICIOUSLY written book, each chapters draws a beautifully vivid portrait of an artist.
4 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Probably Good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2022
Verified Purchase
Bought for a partner. She had it already.
3 people found this helpful
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