The Lonely City

By: Olivia Laing

Narrated by: Tilda Swinton, 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.

©2026 Olivia Laing (P)2026 Canongate Books Ltd

Critic reviews

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)