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Olivia Laing Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Olivia Laing
Photo: Jonathan Ring

Olivia Laing

Olivia Laing Biography

Olivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. She's the author of seven books, including To the River (2011), The Trip to Echo Spring (2013), The Lonely City (2016) and Everybody (2021). She's a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2018 was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

Her first novel, Crudo, is a real-time account of the turbulent summer of 2017. It was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Laing writes on art and culture for the Guardian, Financial Times and New York Times, among many other publications. She's written catalogue essays on a variety of contemporary artists, including Andy Warhol, Agnes Martin, Derek Jarman, Wolfgang Tillmans and Chantal Joffe. Her collected essays on art, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, were published in 2020.

Her new book, The Garden Against Time, is an exhilarating account of garden-making and the long and troubled dream of paradise on earth. It was a Sunday Times number one bestseller.

Laing is non-binary.

Olivia Laing's website

This bio was last updated on 06/18/2024. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Books by this Author

Books by Olivia Laing at BookBrowse
The Garden Against Time jacket Everybody jacket Crudo jacket The Trip to Echo Spring jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Olivia Laing but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Kate Bolick

    Kate Bolick

    Kate Bolick is a contributing editor for The Atlantic, freelance writer for ELLE, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and host of "Touchstones at The Mount," an annual literary interview series. Previously, she ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Trip to Echo Spring

    Try:
    Spinster
    by Kate Bolick

  • Rachel Cusk

    Rachel Cusk

    Rachel Cusk is the author of Second Place, the Outline trilogy, the memoirs A Life's Work and Aftermath, and several other works of fiction and nonfiction. She is a Guggenheim Fellow. She lives in Paris. (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Trip to Echo Spring

    Try:
    Outline
    by Rachel Cusk

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