Welcome to Litsy!

My first #nywd2022 purchase! I didn‘t see this one available through Hoopla or Libby, so I figured it was a good fit for a little weekend shopping.

Hands down one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read - I don't even know how to sum it up beyond that! SO much is contained within these pages; I related to lots of it and yet also feel like I've been introduced to so much that was brand new to me - the art and artists spoken about among so much else. Faaaaaabulous. I'm definitely going to be reading more by Laing!!

I must admit I've not made a brilliant start to #Scarathlon2021😂 I've been such a busy bee that I've only managed to read for an hour so far, AND I'm still finishing The Lonely City haha

That said, I hope to finish that this week and can then crack on with #TeamHendrix 's #BuddyRead Warm Bodies and get more of those lovely points!

@StayCurious

I moved house this weekend and I am very pleased with how my books look in my new room😊

'Or the one in Morning Sun, who sits on her bed, hair twisted into a messy bun, gazing through her window at the city beyond. A pretty morning, light washing the walls, but nonetheless something desolate about her eyes and jaw, her slim wrists crossed over her legs. I often sat just like that, adrift in rumpled sheets, trying not to feel, trying simply to take consecutive breaths.'

Next up!

A moving book.

I‘ve been feeling lonely for a while now. So I decided to google “books about loneliness”, you know, like everyone does and see what I find. ‘The Lonely City” was one of the books that came up so I‘m giving it a chance 🤷‍♀️

#popsugarreadingchallenge2021
Read 14/50
Prompt: book about art or artists

This hit hard as a single person living alone during lockdown

a lonely one; not at all the same thing as admitting one is lonely. Instead, it suggests with that a, that unassuming indefinite article, a fact that loneliness by its nature resists. Though it feels entirely isolating, a private burden no one else could possibly experience or share, it is in reality a communal state, inhabited by many

Lonely people are restless sleepers, and experience a reduction in the restorative function of sleep. Loneliness drives up blood pressure, accelerates ageing, weakens the immune system and acts as a precursor to cognitive decline. According to a 2010 study, loneliness predicts increased morbidity and mortality, which is an elegant way of saying that loneliness can prove fatal.

loneliness inhibits empathy because it induces in its wake a kind of self-protective amnesia, so that when a person is no longer lonely they struggle to remember what the condition is like.

Loneliness feels like such a shameful experience, so counter to the lives we are supposed to lead, that it becomes increasingly inadmissible, a taboo state whose confession seems destined to cause others to turn and flee.

But loneliness doesn‘t necessarily correlate with an external or objective lack of company; what psychologists term social isolation or social privation. By no means all people who live their lives in the absence of company are lonely, while it is possible to experience acute loneliness while in a relationship or among a group of friends.

What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. It feels shameful and alarming, and over time these feelings radiate outwards, making the lonely person increasingly isolated, increasingly estranged. It hurts, in the way that feelings do, and it also has physical consequences that take place invisibly, inside the closed compartments of the body.

Loneliness, I began to realise, was a populated place: a city in itself.

Interesting, the idea that loneliness might be taking you towards an otherwise unreachable experience of reality.

Perhaps I‘m wrong, but I don‘t think any experience so much a part of our common shared lives can be entirely devoid of meaning, without a richness and a value of some kind.

Loneliness is difficult to confess; difficult too to categorise. Like depression, a state with which it often intersects, it can run deep in the fabric of a person, as much a part of one‘s being as laughing easily or having red hair.

It‘s possible – easy, even – to feel desolate and unfrequented in oneself while living cheek by jowl with others. Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn‘t necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.

Was listening, now gonna be reading. To many good quotes to just listen to this one!

You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people.

I think this might be the perfect book for self-isolation

This book is presently blowing me away. It‘s so smart, and so good.

Interesting reading these two alongside each other.
Walden is for book club but has been on my shelf for a few years.... Lonely City was recommended based on previous reads.
They both give interesting insight into loneliness versus solitude and the impact or benefits on individuals.

I've wanted to read this for a while and started last night. It's quite a detailed account of artists with a theme of loneliness for numerous reasons.

I enjoyed Laing's approach to this part-memoir, part-mini bios on loneliness. It's difficult to do the topic justice without appearing self-pitying. Instead, her account of moving to NYC after a breakup and dealing with loneliness is frank and insightful. She threads her own experiences with those of artists like Hopper, Warhol, Wojnarowicz, and others. An interesting exploration into why a feeling that is so universal causes so much shame.

Одинокий город.

Девушка переехала из Англии в Нью Йорк к мужчине, который в итоге оставил её, она рассказывает о том, что такое одиночество и как люди разных эпох с ним справлялись.

I adored "To the River" and was expecting something in a similar vein here. She does write about her own loneliness (as distinct from solitude) when adrift in New York but it's primarily about artists and the work made from their experience of social isolation and/or exclusion. No doubt I'd have enjoyed it more if I were already familiar with the artists and their work (she's made me want to look up David Wojnarowicz now). I do love her writing.

I'm rattled.
I feel for the man but he didn't respect her boundaries and years later she's still feeling ashamed of how she responded. ?
It enrages me how some men foist themselves upon women and demand attention as if it were their right. Beyond naming it Mr Ramsay Syndrome (from "To the Lighthouse") to myself I have yet to formulate a satisfactory response. I really hate to be rude and don't want to make a fuss but LEAVE ME ALONE, right?

This book is said to be a ‘meditation on loneliness‘. It‘s Olivia Laing adrift and alone in a foreign city, while she attempts to explore some artists‘ life and creativity.
#ItsGonnaBeMe #AMonthOfSongs

Laing took her time alone in New York to write this excellent book about how being alone can fuel creativity and art,and though I have read extensively about Hopper ,Warhol & Wojnarowicz, she brings different insights to the conversation.Heck,Darger had to create his own world.I would often schedule time alone in NY to let the magic ,weirdness,& wonder happen .I have yet to make great art of those experiences though.

Bit late to the #timbittunes party today - sorry about that! And that also means someone may have already posted this #lonelylonely book....

@Cinfhen @TheKidUpstairs

I found sooo many books with a lot of sky on the cover... Here‘s just two more!

#showusyourcover
#sky

@kaye

I've always been happy as a fairly solitary person, there are lots of aspects of being alone and it doesn't have to be negative. I've been meaning to read this one for ages #onmyown #musicalnewyear @Cinfhen @vivastory

#adventrecommends day 13

A favorite from this year about the different ways that you can be alone. In Laing‘s examination she focuses a lot on artists and their art.

Hmmm... I‘m sensing a theme here.

1. Done. But ask me tomorrow, the answer might be different.

2. 59

3. Not one specific thing, but really happy about actually going to the art exhibits, literary happenings and other cultural things that I want to go to and not just talk about it.

4. Christmas

5. A day late so 👋 everyone

#HelloThursday

A bit different to what I expected as the reviews implied that the book is about the author‘s own experiences in New York City. It is much more about NYC based artists but still a fascinating, engrossing book nonetheless. Loved the section about Hopper and learnt a lot about Warhol, as well as other artists that were new to me. Book underneath is There There - next on the list after picking out of a hat....

Finally got round to starting on my birthday books from the lovely #jbuk Littens. I really couldn‘t choose where to start so picked names out of a ‘hat‘. This one came out first and loving it so far!

Love this reference to Hopper‘s apartment on Washington Square as I‘ve been IN it! It was during Open House New York a couple of years ago and we somehow managed to get two of the very limited tickets!

Thanks @youneverarrived ❤️📖

This #nonfiction falls into several categories: history, biography, memoir and cultural journalism. The artists at the core of Laing‘s study include Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, Klaus Nomi & Edward Hooper. People who felt alone even in a crowd. Loneliness is a fascinating topic, and often sad, but there‘s also a recognition that solitude can be a good thing. The #audiobook is narrated with a British accent by Susan Lyons. #LGBTQ

Loneliness, longing, does not mean one has failed, but simply that one is alive.

(Author photo from Internet)

“Not all wounds need healing, and not all scars are ugly.”

(#audiobook listening while picking grapes today.)

David Wojnarowicz on AIDS: “My rage is really about the fact that when I was told that I‘d contracted this virus, it didn‘t take me long to realize that I‘d contracted a diseased society as well.”

Wojnarowicz is one of the artists Laing focuses on in her exploration of loneliness. The Whitney in NYC currently has an exhibition of his work:
https://whitney.org/Exhibitions/DavidWojnarowicz

I'd never been comfortable with the demands of femininity, had always felt more like a boy, a gay boy, that I inhabited a gender position somewhere between the binaries of male and female, some impossible other, some impossible both. Trans, I was starting to realise, which isn't to say I was transitioning from one thing to another, but rather that I inhabited a space in the centre, which didn't exist, except there I was.

#LGBTQ

Sameness, especially for the immigrant, the shy boy agonizingly aware of his failures to fit in, is a profoundly desirable state, an antidote against the pain of being singular, alone.

Thanks so much to @youneverarrived and @Cathythoughts for the birthday gifts! ❤️ Katie, The Lonely City looks fab, and I love books about NYC - I can‘t wait to read it if it‘s one of your favourites! Cathy - I‘m also really looking forward to the books you picked off my TBR - I‘m excited that both you and Barack rated Fates and Furies! 🤣 Loving the squirrel card and thanks for the ‘camping‘ socks - how did you know my feet are ALWAYS freezing?!