A renowned author and cultural critic with a bold and distinctive voice, Olivia Laing has written nonfiction books including their debut, To the River (2011), and the bestselling titles The Garden Against Time and The Lonely City. In 2018, they published their first novel, Crudo, and their second – The Silver Book, a gay love story and thriller set in the sumptuous world of 70s Italian cinema – is out now in paperback. A 10th anniversary edition of The Lonely City has just been published by Canongate and this week Laing announced two forthcoming novels: Blue, a follow-up to Crudo and The Workings, “set in a decaying London in the winter of 1973”. They live in Suffolk and London with their husband, the poet Ian Patterson.

I’m going to confess this now – until I was in my 40s I was scared of going to Venice because I didn’t think I’d be able to understand how to travel between the islands. I eventually was sent there on an Italian book tour, and my first impression was that I was in Disneyland, shuffling through alleys in a giant queue of people wearing transparent macs. “I think I hate Venice,” I texted a friend. Twenty-four hours later, it was my favourite place on Earth, supplanting even New York in my affections. It’s been seriously inspiring, too. I had the idea for The Silver Book out on the lagoon. Venice is where my two main characters, Danilo and Nicholas, first meet, and the city’s character – fluid, equivocal, sensual, sinister – sets the tone for the novel. If I had to pick one thing to do? Cicchetti at Cantine del Vino già Schiavi. Mine’s pear and gorgonzola.

I first saw Mx Justin Vivian Bond in the 2006 film Shortbus. They are a transgender cabaret artist who came to fame as Kiki in Kiki and Herb. When I lived in the East Village and was working on The Lonely City I used to go to Joe’s Pub all the time to see them sing. Those shows were truly electrifying. In the last decade, Vivian has been blooming. They were awarded a much-deserved MacArthur genius grant and have been modelling for Loewe and Dior, as well as popping up in movies and operas and being an outspoken activist and icon for trans rights. A couple of years ago they charmed London with a show at Wilton’s Music Hall called Only An Octave Apart. Keep your eyes peeled for the next visitation. In these ugly times, Vivian’s motto is very cheering: glamour as resistance. 

God knows why the Yellow Bittern has been so controversial. It’s a very nice small room where you can get a brilliant lunch. Oh my God, you have to pay cash, what a drama. There’s soda bread that’s as good as my granny’s and top-end puddings. There’s a bookshop downstairs too, and beautiful pictures on the walls if you don’t feel like talking. The tables are quite close together, and I’ve watched strangers strike up friendships, which feels pretty rare these days. Hugh and Oisin are great cooks and when Frances, the co-proprietor, isn’t being a waitress, she also runs Luncheon magazine from a tiny room downstairs. It’s a place that always makes me feel better about life. I love lunch.

SS Daley exploded into visibility in 2021. The clothes spoke to me from the beginning – they’re super-queer, and they riff off aristocratic codes that I find very evocative. Cricket trousers, blazers, beautiful shirts. The colours are wonderful and slightly strange. My favourite was a massive striped shirt printed with orange poppies, but it’s been supplanted by a navy T-shirt that says “Bunny Boy”. What else would a non-binary person wear on a summer’s day? I recently did an event at the SS Daley pop-up shop in Shoreditch, and I was talking dreamily about a particular outfit Rupert Everett wore in the film Another Country. Afterwards, Steven Stokey-Daley, the genius behind SS Daley, did a breakdown of every element of the look. Queer sensibility at its finest.

I really think Henry Taylor is the greatest living painter. I first saw his work at the Whitney Museum in New York. He lives in Los Angeles and he paints scenes from Black life – people doing everyday stuff. Lawn chairs, barbecues, going for a run. The figuration can seem deceptively simple but the paint is loose and luscious, and the colours are spectacular. He really takes risks. His paintings are joyful and free, seriously intelligent and totally alive. He was close friends with Noah Davis, the subject of an amazing retrospective at the Barbican last year, but he hasn’t yet had a UK exhibition of the scale he deserves. Luckily, this year he’s got a big show at the Picasso Museum in Paris, which is on until September. Get on that Eurostar!

The Silver Book is out now in paperback (tour details here). Olivia Laing will be talking about The Lonely City at 10 with Charlie Porter at the Union Chapel, London N1, on 23 June