I have used parts of this book in my Women's History course. It has been very valuable in my effort to give more insight into feminism.

Only Olivia Laing is capable of combining art, culture, science, sex, and history into a seamlessly stunning collection of essays. Her writing has always resonated with me and "Everybody" is as powerful and timely as "Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency" and "Lonely City." Laing's books always make me view the world new and surprising ways. While reading "Everybody" I began to reconsider how I feel about and understand my physical, emotional, and psychological self and how it relates to others around me.

One passage I keep thinking about was: "We’re all stuck in our bodies, meaning stuck inside a grid of conflicting ideas about what those bodies mean, what they’re capable of and what they’re allowed or forbidden to do. We’re not just individuals, hungry and mortal, but also representative types, subject to expectations, demands, prohibitions and punishments that vary enormously according to the kind of body we find ourselves inhabiting."

I'm not sure why this book didn't work for me like The Lonely City did. From what I'd read of its synopsis, Everybody seemed like it was poised to be a new favourite--a series of essays exploring the body and its relation to politics and liberation? Yes please. It sounded so good, and it's not that it was bad, exactly, it just didn't leave any kind of impression on me. I think this is partly because I didn't care all that much about the principal figure of this book, Wilhelm Reich. Laing explores so many people's lives in Everybody--Susan Sontag, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Andrea Dworkin--but her focus always goes back to Reich, and I just wasn't all that drawn to him as a subject of analysis.

Another thing is that these essays felt a little scattered in their focus. The Lonely City worked so well for me because each of its chapters was dedicated to a historical figure, and as such devoted the time to properly exploring that figure's life. That's not to say that Everybody needed to be written like The Lonely City, but just that the latter's format worked so much better than the former's. The essays in Everybody often flitted from one figure to another, trying to ground them all under the same set of themes. But though I appreciated Laing's attempts to draw on the commonalities between these figures, I would've liked more on fewer figures rather than a little on many figures.

Thanks so much to W.W. Norton & Company for providing me with an e-ARC of this in exchange for an honest review!

I love the journeys Olivia Laing takes me on and this one was no exception. The connecting theme is freedom, but readers are taken on a journey across various times and places as the author ruminates on freedom.

I am such a fan of Olivia Laing. I’ve enjoyed Funny Weather and Lonely City very much, and the concept of studying freedom for all bodies is an amazing study, but for some reason this one didn’t resonate with me quite as much.

Most of this is my own fault. Many times as I was reading this, I wasn’t sure exactly what year we were in. The book seemed to jump around from the ‘50s to the 80’s to today, and gave me a little whiplash. Also, I’ve never been the biggest fan of Freud so learning more about his history and that of his proteges didn’t interest me as much. At times it did get a bit heady and to philosophical for me.

I enjoyed reading about her own experiences as especially those that are notable in history. Favorites include Malcolm X, Nina Simone, and Susan Sontag. I could understand many of her conclusions better looking through the lens of someone’s life instead of just reading about the individual concept.

The idea of this book is quite beautiful. Looking at the history and psychological implications of pure body autonomy is fascinating. I love the way she especially looks at gay, gender, and civil rights in her writing. Whether Laing is talking about the bodies of prisoners, early trans activists, sexual assault victims, those with childhood trauma, and so many other marginalized group, you feel the passion she has for celebrating human bodies.

Olivia Laing's collection really provides an interesting insight towards life's big questions. This is my first non-fiction Laing collection. It definitely won't be my last! It was compulsively readable and unputdownable

"Just imagine what we could do. Just imagine what we could build."

This book was poignant, thoughtful, incredible, heart-wrenching, beautiful, sad and brilliantly written. Olivia Laing took these ideas that were floating around and brought them together into one informative and absolutely incredibly written piece.

A piece of work that deserves to be read and studied in incredible detail.