Funny Weather' by Olivia Laing is one of those books that lingers in your mind long after you've turned the last page. It's a collection of essays that weave together art, politics, and personal reflection, creating a tapestry that feels both urgent and timeless. The main themes revolve around the intersection of creativity and crisis—how artists respond to turbulent times, whether it's climate change, political upheaval, or personal trauma. Laing examines figures like David Wojnarowicz and Jean-Michel Basquiat, showing how their work channeled anger and vulnerability into something transformative.
Another recurring theme is the fragility of the body and the environment. Laing draws parallels between physical illness and ecological collapse, suggesting that both demand a radical rethinking of care and connection. Her prose is lyrical but unflinching, like when she describes the 'queer weather' of our era—a metaphor for the unpredictable, often violent shifts in society. What sticks with me is her insistence that art isn’t a luxury but a survival tool, a way to map the chaos and find meaning in it.
If 'Funny Weather' had a soundtrack, it’d be a mix of protest songs and ambient noise—restless, charged, but oddly beautiful. Laing’s essays tackle the chaos of modern life head-on, with themes like the commodification of art, the erosion of public space, and the weird intimacy of online existence. She’s especially sharp on how capitalism flattens creativity, Turning rebellion into a marketable aesthetic. Remember her riff on Instagram vs. the handmade zine? It’s a gut punch.
But there’s warmth here too. She celebrates queer communities and outsider artists who build their own worlds when the mainstream fails them. The way she writes about friendship and collaboration—like Derek Jarman’s garden as an act of resistance—makes you believe in small, stubborn acts of hope. It’s not a manifesto, more like a series of love letters to the messy, glorious ways people keep making things even when everything’s on Fire.
Reading 'Funny Weather' feels like walking through a gallery where every piece whispers secrets about the world. Laing’s themes are big—time, loss, resistance—but she grounds them in tactile details: the smell of oil paint, the scratch of a vinyl record. One thread I loved was how she frames art as a way to steal back time from institutions that want to control it. Her essay on Bowie’s final album, 'Blackstar,' haunts me; she sees it as a deliberate blurring of life and art, a refusal to let death have the last word.
Then there’s the weather metaphor itself—how climate change mirrors societal breakdown, both forcing us to adapt or perish. She doesn’t offer easy answers, just a compass pointing toward curiosity and solidarity. After finishing, I kept noticing small acts of creation everywhere, like graffiti or a shared playlist, and thinking, 'Yeah, that’s what she meant.'
2025-11-18 22:34:18
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At ten years old, I watched my mom jump to her death in a rainstorm.
That same night, my dad brought home a glamorous woman and her nine-year-old daughter.
I had feared and hated rainy days since then.
My husband once helped me face that childhood trauma, staying by my side through every storm and promising, "Don't worry, Lena, you'll never face your fears alone."
But when I refused to pick up his new assistant, he abandoned me on a highway in pouring rain, saying, "Marie is your sister, and you left her out there? Walk home!"
That night, the rain never stopped, and I walked thirteen hours along a dark, endless road.
That was when I decided I was done with him.
The Williamson family sets out on a road trip to reach their family for the holidays. Along the ride they run into bad weather, multiple accidents and unnerving strangers. When a near accident forces them off the road, they meet a man who befriends the father. He tells him of this motel not too far up the street, in case they need a place to wait out the approaching snow storm. When the family is forced to find a place to stay, that motel seems to be their only option. Everything seems normal at first, but the longer the stay the more sinister things become until the family is forced to fight for their lives.. will they make it through the holidays? Will the survive this snow storm?
It started with a sudden downpour.
I turned around to buy an umbrella. By the time I got back, Winston Sterling had already draped his overcoat across Sera Thorne’s shoulders.
He pulled me under the umbrella, his tone gentle, as if soothing a spoiled child. "Sera can't handle the cold. Just let her have it this once, Nat. Be a good girl. Don't make a fuss."
I looked down at my own shoulder, which was already completely soaked through. I didn't say a word.
We had been building our startup for five years. Everyone always said Winston and Sera were the dual heart and soul of Sterling Tech. One wrote the code, while the other pitched the product.
Meanwhile, I was the one managing the budgets, chasing down clients, advancing money for our office rent, and pulling all-nighters to grind out business proposals. Yet, all I ever got from him was a single, offhand sentence.
"Nat, you're always the reasonable one."
But I finally understood. It was always the reasonable one who got pushed out into the rain, time and time again.
When the car door opened, Winston practiced an all-too-familiar routine, adjusting the passenger seat cushion for Sera.
That was a lumbar support cushion I had bought for myself after injuring my waist.
I threw the newly purchased umbrella straight into the trash can. Then, I pulled up my phone and clicked send on the equity exit agreement I had prepared long ago.
Three minutes later, his reply came back as a brief, three-word text.
"Don't be silly."
What he didn't know was that at that exact same moment, I had also opened another email.
Ericka Mendel is an oddball who overcame her illiteracy to become an extraordinary teacher and a survivor in the face of overwhelming challenges.
Because of her out-of-character sobbing, ranting, and talkative behavior when no one is present in her early years, she has been compared to radio drama characters. Because of her tendency, she is generally regarded as odd and foolish.
She was motivated to achieve her big ambitions, even if her family did not believe she could.
After six years, she had become the model student on the campus of the school, garnering plaudits and academic prizes while many boys bullied her due to her humor, friendliness, and charm. She found her teenage years to be unhappy as a result of them.
But she overcame many obstacles while she was a teenager before deciding to join a convent after graduation.
She developed her personality via activism, which led her to seek refuge in the convent lifestyle. But she left them after serving as a nun for six years to travel and seek new things.
Within twenty years, she gave in to Darwin Ibrahim's promises as a foreigner who adored her innocent characteristics.
She views wisdom and love as the best weapons to fight the battle of suffering, but paradise is tempestuous.
She recognized that Darwin Ibrahim was a liar and that his promises were made to be broken due to his legal difficulties when they began living together without getting legally married or engaging in another formal ceremony.
Due to her mental health concerns, her opponents secretly held all of her beloved, sweet children.
Erika Ibrahim's trust in God deepens because of her capacity to humbly accept and conquer life's obstacles after Darwin disappears and she is left to start over with her children.
Olivia Statler hates Logan Hayes. It's not the fact that he's an executive of a rival travel company, or the fact that he's trying to buy her company, or even the fact that he won't leave her alone. Two years ago, the two of them seemed to have something that was amazing and real, but Logan's ego got in the way.
When a new resort offers her an all-expense-paid trip to woo new clients, she figures that a working vacation is just what she needs. As the youngest CEO in the travel business, she's honored and flattered. However, she isn't the only executive that the resort invited. When Olivia sees the broad shoulders and blonde hair of Logan Hayes, her heart races. Half of it is raw sexual attraction, half of it is anger at what he did to her.
Logan is determined to reignite their past spark, but Olivia does everything possible to avoid him. However, a hurricane strikes and traps them on the island, making it impossible to ignore the changed man in front of her. Only a storm as powerful as their passion will show them love or hate. Can romance survive the storm – or will their hurricane kisses be swept away forever?
Stormy Banks is an ordinary eighteen year old in college. all her life, she seemed perfectly normal until she meets Scott Bentley.
Scott is a narcissistic boy with rude behaviours. He never lived a normal childhood and he wasn't planning on living the rest of his life normal, until he meets Stormy and she changes his upside down world into a beautiful chaos. But troubles and their past seemed to hunt their relationship as they move on, testing them at every turn.
There's a quiet magic in 'Come On, Rain!' that resonates deeply with anyone who's ever longed for relief on a sweltering day. At its core, the book celebrates patience, hope, and the transformative power of nature. The protagonist, Tess, and her friends aren't just waiting for rain—they're yearning for it, their anticipation mirroring the way life often makes us hold our breath for change. The oppressive heat becomes a metaphor for stagnation, while the eventual downpour symbolizes renewal and collective joy. It's a story about community, too; the way neighbors spill into the streets, united by something as simple as water falling from the sky.
What struck me most was how Karen Hesse's lyrical prose and Jon J Muth's watercolors work together to make you feel the humidity clinging to your skin and then the sheer exhilaration of cool raindrops. It's not just a children's book—it's a reminder that sometimes the smallest natural phenomena can reset our spirits. The themes of resilience and shared experience linger long after the last page, like the scent of petrichor after a summer storm.
The central conflict in 'Fair Weather' revolves around the protagonist's struggle to reconcile their rural roots with the glittering but hollow promises of city life. After moving to pursue dreams of wealth and status, they find themselves trapped in a cycle of materialism that erodes their values and relationships. The tension escalates when family illness forces a return home, exposing the stark contrast between urban ambition and rural authenticity. Environmental degradation caused by corporate greed in their hometown becomes a physical manifestation of this inner turmoil. The climax hinges on choosing between personal success or leading a community fight against the forces destroying their heritage.
Olivia Laing's 'Funny Weather' feels like stumbling into the most vibrant, intellectually stimulating party where everyone’s discussing art, politics, and survival with equal passion. What makes it essential isn’t just the essays themselves—though her takes on David Bowie’s queerness or the radical hope in Margaret Atwood’s writing are electrifying—but how she frames creativity as a lifeline during chaos. Her prose dances between personal grief (she wrote much of this during the Brexit fallout) and collective resilience, making art feel less like a luxury and more like oxygen.
I especially love how she dismantles the myth of the 'isolated genius.' Her portraits of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat or Derek Jarman show messy, collaborative humanity. It’s not a dry analysis; it’s a rallying cry. After reading, I found myself noticing tiny acts of creativity everywhere—graffiti, playlist-making—as quiet rebellions. That shift in perspective? Priceless.
Olivia Laing's 'Funny Weather' is this wild, thoughtful ride through art, culture, and the absurdity of living in chaotic times. What sticks with me is how she ties humor to survival—like how artists use wit to cope with political mess or personal grief. The essay on David Bowie’s playfulness as rebellion, for instance, nails how humor isn’t just escapism but a way to reclaim power. Laing doesn’t force punchlines; she finds irony in how we create beauty amid disasters, like plants cracking through pavement. It’s less about laugh-out-loud jokes and more about the quiet, defiant smirk you wear when the world feels upside down.
Her analysis of queer humor particularly hit home. She writes about how marginalized communities twist pain into satire, like Derek Jarman’s garden blooming in nuclear shadow. That duality—laughter as both armor and a middle finger to despair—is what makes the book resonate. It’s not a comedy manual; it’s a manifesto for finding light in weird, broken places. I finished it feeling oddly comforted, like someone handed me a flashlight during a blackout.