S1, Ep5 How to Fail: Olivia Laing

S1, Ep5 How to Fail: Olivia Laing

This week on How To Fail, we’re joined by the brilliant writer Olivia Laing. Her three critically-acclaimed works of non-fiction, To The River, The Trip to Echo Spring and The Lonely City, have explored themes of alcoholism, loneliness and suicide (and yet somehow manage to be deeply uplifting to read). Her recent debut novel, Crudo, has everyone from Jilly Cooper to Viv Albertine in veritable ecstasies. Olivia talks to us about losing her way in her 20s, how the torture of romantic break-ups has ultimately led to some of her greatest creative work and about what it’s like to be made redundant from a job you love. Along the way, we discuss gender fluidity, whether women are conditioned to self-deprecate, getting married at 40, why being raised by lesbians made Olivia less susceptible to patriarchal assumptions about What Men Want. We also debate whether Brighton has more dogs on strings than the average British city (spoiler alert: Elizabeth thinks that yes, it definitely does). How To Fail is hosted by Elizabeth Day and produced by Chris Sharp How To Fail is sponsored by Moorish Crudo by Olivia Laing is out now, published by Picador Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabdayOlivia Laing @olivialanguageMoorish @moorishhumousPicador @picadorbooks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episoder(377)

Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton - ‘We were young and working-class. We were dismissed.’

Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton - ‘We were young and working-class. We were dismissed.’

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ON MOTHERHOOD… with Jessie Ware and Francesca Segal

ON MOTHERHOOD… with Jessie Ware and Francesca Segal

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16 Mar 19min

Rosamund Pike - ‘Failure Is Pretending To Be Someone You’re Not’

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Rosamund Pike! What a woman. Famed for her portrayals of razor-sharp, morally complex and deliciously unpredictable characters, she brings that same intriguing duality to this conversation. Thoughtful...

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SPECIAL EP: On Fertility and Finding Your Family… with Rebecca Coxon

SPECIAL EP: On Fertility and Finding Your Family… with Rebecca Coxon

In this one‑off special, Elizabeth sits down with author Rebecca Coxon to discuss family, fertility and the secrets that have shaped her life: after uploading her DNA to an ancestry site, Rebecca disc...

9 Mar 41min

Toni Laites - Love Island Healed My Toxic Dating Patterns

Toni Laites - Love Island Healed My Toxic Dating Patterns

Toni Laites made history last year as the first American to win Love Island, but her journey to the villa was anything but ordinary. Discovered in Las Vegas working as a cabana girl by the show’s cre...

4 Mar 54min

ON AMBITION… With Gillian Anderson and Munroe Bergdorf

ON AMBITION… With Gillian Anderson and Munroe Bergdorf

Ambition can be a powerful force: it propels us forward, sharpens our focus and pushes us to dream bigger. But it can also whisper that we are only as good as our latest achievement - and these two br...

2 Mar 12min

Baz Luhrmann - ‘I self-medicate with creativity’

Baz Luhrmann - ‘I self-medicate with creativity’

Few filmmakers have a style as bold, romantic and unmistakable as Baz Luhrmann. From his breakout debut Strictly Ballroom to the glittering spectacle of The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio, an...

25 Feb 50min

ON SELF ACCEPTANCE... With Pamela Anderson and Rylan Clark

ON SELF ACCEPTANCE... With Pamela Anderson and Rylan Clark

Welcome back to this How to Fail special where we revisit conversations from the archive to highlight particular themes and tap into the wisdom they contain. This week we look at two guests who have...

23 Feb 23min

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