Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I always enjoy Olivia Laing’s writing and this book is no exception. It lends itself to dipping in and out with poetic description about art and culture at large, with just enough biographical detail about the subjects. Thanks NetGalley!

Laing is so smart and writes with such utter authority. I enjoyed this but also felt a bit more awed by the depth of her knowledge, rather than pure enjoyment.

I enjoyed reading about the artists that I'm familiar with more than those I wasn't before reading this. I guess those that I already knew of it felt more like shared admiration than instruction in how to view their work.

My thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

What this book is is a series of essays on art and culture which is beautifully written. Laing manages to do something very difficult, which is keeping an engaging tone while discussing artwork (though it's a shame the book didn't have as many images as I'd hoped it would).

What's different about Laing's collection is that it was written in response to the strange, unsettling political climate of the past few years since Trump's inauguration. A very exciting premise, but the surface-level nature of the discussion let it down.

A glorious book! Laing has created a true portrait of art in the modern world and why it is necessary now more than ever. I enjoyed the more conversational writing and became a little obsessed with the love letter to Freddie Mercury. Laing explores both the beauty and the underbelly of the art and the artist, which can often be heartbreaking but it just makes you fall in love with art, in all it's forms, all over again. This is an important book.

In this series of essays Lang gives us a glimpse into the lives of some important artists, writers and singers of the 20th century. Its a wonderful collection that needs to be savoured.

Loved this book of fantastically interesting and varied essays. Laing writes about art (one example) but really she’s discussing humanity. A truly wonderful essayist who deserves to read widely.

This my first book by Olivia Laing and I will definitely read more of her work in the future. Funny Weather is an essay collection and some of the essays I loved and found fascinating, I actually looked up some of the artists she wrote about to find out more about them and their work. Others were about people I already know about and I really connected with them, such as the essay on Freddie Mercury (he was the first famous person whose death made me cry too). There were some essays that just felt too short and too surface level though which meant I didn’t get much out of them and there wasn’t enough to pique my interest to look the artists up. Mostly I enjoyed this book though and I would recommend it.

I have always admired Olivia’s writing yet to have so much collected densely together is a blessing.
loved this book, will definitely be recommending in store.

I enjoyed Laing's The Lonely City very much and I found this collection to have a lot of equal value. Olivia Laing is really good on art. Her fascination with the artists and their work shines through, she has you breaking off to google specific works of art so you can share her insights and try and see how she sees. There are many of the same figures visited here as in the Lonely City, Basquiat for example, but a lot that's new and exciting as well. I was introduced to fascinating figures like Georgia O'Keeffe that I have immediately begun exploring elsewhere. However, I struggled to engage at this level throughout the collection. When she's writing about art, she's a teacher, but describing a love of Freddie Mercury or Normal People, I think requires a shift in tone. It's a very cerebral and impersonal voice throughout which can begin to feel monotonous and which doesn't suit all the material equally. Nevertheless, she's very clever, interesting and original and this collection is definitely worth your time.

Could there have been a better time for a book subtitled 'Art in an Emergency' to be released?

Olivia Laing's essay collection explores how art intersects with politics through different moments in history. At a time when so many of us are turning to art, whether it is streaming One Man, Two Guv'nors from the National Theatre, reading more, taking virtual gallery tours, or even creating ourselves, the book seems prescient and timely.

Laing takes us through so many different forms of art and their moments in history, from exploring key artists and authors, to specific works. The essays are collected from her works over recent years, and for the most part they fit together well as a collection, with repeating motifs and references across the years and articles. As an anthology of past essays it does not read as seamlessly as a curated collection might, but it is well organised, into coherent sections. The essays are also very accessible and conscise - Laing avoids becoming over-academic, while maintaining a considered and politically engaged voice throughout her writing.

Through Laing, you will discover art that is new to you, learn about the lives of artists and how art has responded to politics, or been politicised. This book illustrates how and why art is so important - it gives us different ways of looking at the world.

This is the perfect book for the current moment - whether that is Coronavirus, Brexit or Trump. If you have even the most passing interest in art, culture or politics this book will broaden your horizons.

I love Olivia Laing's prose and fiction, and I thoroughly enjoyed this collections of essays, which I think prove that art is vital to us humans.

Tight prose and acute reviews of a variety of different artists and art forms. I didn't know all of them so it was hard to relate at times, but also meant that I was opened up to new creators and pursuits.

I very much enjoyed reading this collection of essays, on art, literature and other miscellaneous topics such as environmental activism. I may have been unfair giving it 4 rather than 5 stars but this is because it is a book that definitely suits a hard copy rather than electronic format, as it’s perfect for dipping into rather than linear reading.
I missed any illustrations of the art works referenced which I had to look up, but in terms of broadening the mind I’d recommend this.

Everything Olivia Laing writes is worth reading. This is a fine collection of essays about art, writing and the kinds of things Olivia Laing has written about so well elsewhere - loneliness, transgression, alcoholism. Like most essay collections, it seems random in places but that's why I read books of essays. The best pieces for me were "Feral", which outlines vividly Laing's time as an environmental activist in the 1990s, and the concluding, long conversation with Joseph Keckler which is fantastic. There she says "I usually write very slowly and my work is very research-heavy [...] it's a fairly dismal process sometimes", which she contrasts with the freedom with which she'd written her first novel, Crudo. You see that in these essays, which are much more conventional and less playful than their subject matter. That doesn't make them any less interesting or well-written, but if she can fuse her freedom as a novelist with the insight these essays are full of in her future writing, we could be in for something remarkable.

I was a fan of Laing’s earlier non-fiction (particularly The Lonely City) but didn’t really get along with her novel, Crudo, This collection of essays and shorter non-fiction works appealed to me but, as is often the case with essay collections, I felt that some were stronger than others; some, I yearned to continue whereas others outstayed their welcome. Laing’s writing is as poetic as ever but I probably wouldn’t recommend this to someone who wasn’t already a fan. Rest assured that when it’s good, it’s excellent, and I certainly came away with an extensive reading list.

I have read all of Olivia Laing’s previous four books (three non-fiction and a genre-bending novel) and have loved them all, albeit in different ways.

I wasn’t sure about Funny Weather, I’m not always keen on books of journalism and hadn’t heard of a lot of the artists about whom she writes; I needn’t have worried. Funny Weather is a real treat, it’s interesting for one simple reason: Laing is herself fascinated about what she’s writing and you’re inspired to stop reading, google the artist in question’s work and then go back and start Laing’s piece again.

Laing’s enthusiasm bounces out through her writing. Whilst she is clearly able to critique, she isn’t a flinty-eyed critic, she is a fan and she wants you to be a fan too, and encourages you by by flicking the switch and lighting up what she loves.

One thing I’d say: the final piece is a Q&A-style interview which is just great. It’s madness that Laing hasn’t been asked by publications to do more of these.

There is much to really enjoy in Funny Weather and I’m already looking forward to her next book.

Funny Weather is a collection Of Olivia Laing's essays, columns and profiles, I was intrigued that she seemed to be given the position of Deputy Literary Editor of the Guardian so easily. Being a collection of work its an eclectic mix of writing, some better than others. Laing really excels when writing about art and artists, particularly in explaining how more esoteric art works. I enjoyed the mini biography's of Basquiat, Warhol, O'Keefe, Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Ali Smith and Hilary Mantel. The way that Laing clearly loves art, music and books shines through and therefore as a reader you can get caught up in that enthusiasm too and understand art in a new way. For example I have read Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts but Laing's reading helped me understand and appreciate parts that I clearly missed.

With Thanks to Net galley for a free ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I don't usually read non-fiction, in fact it is not often that our clients write and send us non-fiction work. I had seen this cover on Instagram (it's becoming such a trend on SM that I though I might as well get involved) and it looked interesting. I went in not knowing much about what to expect & what I would be reading.

The anthology (collection of essays?) begins with artist biographies which I enjoyed as a whistle stop introduction to their lives. My favourite being Jean Michel Basquiat. She references works which I followed along with and provide a fabulous visual guide/accompaniment to the words.
The articles were interesting and I liked that I could read a few self contained pages on the go but it felt long and at the same time disjointed if I didn't break after a few articles.

The READING section was a nice break from the single voice of the rest of the book. That's not to say that the essays by Olivia are too similar or boring because I enjoyed her take on subjects and the way that the essays and articles are written. I think Olivia writes well and through her essays I learned a lot - there were instances of intersectionality too which was good to see.

Overall, it feels quite niche but at the same time, a good introduction to art and culture for those like me who are curious and enjoy art casually (the odd museum visit etc.).

Drawing on Eve Sedgwick's 'Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading', Laing's framing essay/introduction attempts to draw together a miscellany of her work from the previous decade. Like all such anthologies, it's a mixed collection and not all of the pieces necessarily fit the stated remit. But that's ok, in these sort of essay collections it's fine to skip a couple. And there's the danger, acknowledged upfront, that there is repetition. Still, the important thing is that Laing is always thoughtful, politically-engaged and readable, and that this might be a book especially suited to the current lockdown.

The pieces vary from mini-biogs of artists' lives (e.g. Basquiat, Hockney, O'Keefe), magazine columns, a sprinkling of notes from reading (e.g. Patricia Highsmith, Virginia Woolf, Kathy Acker, Deborah Levy, Jean Rhys), literary interviews (e.g. Mantel, Ali Smith), and some assorted pieces on, for example, women writers and alcohol (a brief coda to her The Trip to Echo Spring), and loneliness (linked to her The Lonely City. .

Each of these essays is short, given its provenance, so is ideally suited to either dipping into or for more concerted reading. The latter does draw attention to some of the repetitions: refugees, Jo Cox, Nigel Farage and Brexit, but that's fine. In any case, Laing's emphasis is on resistance and strength, on taking inspiration and finding something 'sustaining out of inimical environments'. Laing, as ever, is readable and intelligent without being academic.