Books by Olivia Laing
Olivia Laing is a writer and critic. She is the author of Crudo, a Sunday Times top ten bestseller; The Lonely City, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; To the River; and The Trip to Echo Spring. In 2018 she was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction.
“In November, Olivia Laing will publish The Silver Book, a novel billed as both ‘a queer love story and a noirish thriller’ set in 1970s Italy. In it, a young English artist meets the (real) production designer Danilo Donati, before joining him as his assistant at the film studio where reality is recast and reconstructed. These are troubled times—the ‘Years of Lead,’ during which hundreds died in terror attacks—and very soon the violence will be knocking at their door.” Read more...
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
“She’s such a fantastic writer. She is a proper intellectual, and you can see that in in her trajectory. I find her first book more accessible than what she’s written since. I loved her descriptions of the natural world.” Read more...
Melissa Harrison, Environmentalist
If you found yourself deeply affected by the solitude and loneliness of Eleanor Oliphant, you might be interested in exploring the topic further through Olivia Laing’s erudite nonfiction book on the topic. As with Laing’s other work, The Lonely City blends memoir and art history as she examines how social dislocation inspired, motivated or made miserable four iconic artists: Edward Hopper, who epitomised urban loneliness in his famous painting ‘Nighthawks’; Andy Warhol, whose busy, aspirational lifestyle belied his deep insecurity; Henry Darger, the posthumously celebrated outsider artist; and David Wojnarowicz, the performance artist and photographer who died of complications related to Aids.
From our article Books like Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
“Written in a flurry over the summer of 2017, it’s an experimental novel told in real time, conflating Laing’s real life persona with that of cult literary figure Kathy Acker.” Read more...
Editors’ Picks: Highlights From a Year in Reading
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
Interviews with Olivia Laing
The Best of Autofiction, recommended by Olivia Laing
All writers draw from lived experience, but today’s most exciting experimental writers aren’t afraid to mine theirs explicitly. Here, the acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing – author of Crudo and The Lonely City – discusses five works of ‘autofiction’ that have influenced her.
Interviews where books by Olivia Laing were recommended
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1
The Living Mountain
by Nan Shepherd -
2
The Water Cure
by Sophie Mackintosh -
3
The Dark Stuff: Stories from the Peatlands
by Donald S Murray -
4
Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
by Chris D Thomas -
5
Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey
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6
Crudo: A Novel
by Olivia Laing
Editors’ Picks: Highlights From a Year in Reading, recommended by Cal Flyn
Editors’ Picks: Highlights From a Year in Reading, recommended by Cal Flyn
Author, journalist and Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn looks back on her favourite books read this year.
The best books on Summer, recommended by Melissa Harrison
Temperatures ratcheting, tinderbox conditions, a pressure cooker atmosphere… summer is a handy literary shorthand for rising tensions. But in the natural world, summer is a quiet time when the flowers die back and the fruits and seeds are ripening. Here, Melissa Harrison—the novelist, nature writer and podcaster—recommends five of the best summer books, for those who like to read in step with the seasons.
Notable Novels of Fall 2025, recommended by Cal Flyn
Fall 2025 is an exciting season for new novels, says Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn. Here, she selects her autumnal highlights including autofictional work from Patricia Lockwood and Chris Kraus, plus a literary detective story set in an apocalyptic future from the “old master,” Ian McEwan.
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1
What We Can Know: A Novel
by Ian McEwan -
2
We Do Not Part
by Han Kang, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris -
3
Flashlight: A Novel
by Susan Choi -
4
The Life of Violet
by Virginia Woolf -
5
Dream Count
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -
6
Heart Lamp: Selected Stories
by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi
New Literary Fiction
New Literary Fiction
Keep up to date with the best new releases in literary fiction here on Five Books. Our deputy editor, Cal Flyn, an award-winning author herself, writes seasonal round-ups of the best new novels from ‘literary’ writers: from buzzed-about debuts to critics’ darlings, new work from the globally recognised greats and beloved sleeper hits from writers’ writers. We love it all here at Five Books.
