100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

πŸŽ‰ Meet Toy Hero - our brand-new toy store, built by the team behind Book Hero

The Silver Book

By Olivia Laing
0.0 (0 reviews)
Brief Description
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing is a unique blend of queer love story and true crime thriller set against the backdrop of 1970s cinema, brought to life by the award-winning, bestselling author. It is September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2800
Pre-order
Releases 8th September 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "The Silver Book" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing is a unique blend of queer love story and true crime thriller set against the backdrop of 1970s cinema, brought to life by the award-winning, bestselling author.

It is September 1974. Two men meet by chance in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realising the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini's Casanova. A youngβ€”and beautifulβ€”apprentice is just what he needs.

He sweeps Nicholas to Rome, into the looking-glass world of CinecittΓ , the studio where Casanova's Venice will be ingeniously assembled. Then in the spring, the lovers move together to the set of SalΓ², Pasolini's horrifying fable of fascism.

But Nicholas has a secret and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amidst the rising tensions of Italy's 'Years of Lead', he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he didn't intend...

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781405982290

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 04 June 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 198g

Pages: 256

Collections

Arts & Culture Fiction General Fiction Historical Fiction LGBTQ+ LGBTQ+ Romance Literary Fiction Olivia Laing Penguin Books Pre-order Books Pre-order General Fiction Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date

About the Author

Olivia Laing is an internationally acclaimed writer and critic. They're the author of eight books, including The Lonely City, Everybody and the Sunday Times number one bestseller The Garden Against Time. Laing's first novel, Crudo, won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and in 2018 they were awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. They are an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts and their books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

Also by Olivia Laing

View all
  • The Lonely City
    In The Lonely City, Olivia Laing charts her journey through New York City in her mid-thirties, when she found herself grappling with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Rather than succumb to this isolating experience, Laing delves deep into the fabric of the city's artistic landscape, exploring the intersections of solitude and creativity. Moving seamlessly through the works and lives of...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Garden Against Time
    What a wonderful book this is. I loved the enchanting and beautifully written story but also the fascinating and thoughtful excursions along the way. – Nigel Slater A garden contains secrets, we all know that: buried elements that might put on strange growth or germinate in unexpected places. The garden that I chose had walls, but like every garden it...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3500
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Trip to Echo Spring
    Why did numerous celebrated authors become entwined with the grip of alcoholism? In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing weaves an evocative journey across America, probing the intricate interplay between creativity and alcohol through the intertwined lives and works of six literary giants: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. Laing embarks...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $2500
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • To the River
    Over sixty years after Virginia Woolf's tragic drowning in the River Ouse, Olivia Laing embarks on a journey that intertwines the natural world with poignant reflections on life and literature. In To the River, Laing sets out to walk along the banks of this historic river, tracing its path from its source to the sea. This journey is not just...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Silver Book
    At once a queer love story and a noirish thriller, set in the dream factory of cinema, The Silver Book is a fictional account of real things, and an investigation into the difficult relationship between artifice and truth, illusion and reality, love and power. 'It is dangerous to want someone this much. He has always known it, from the very...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Funny Weather
    In this remarkable, inspiring collection of essays, acclaimed writer and critic Olivia Laing makes a brilliant case for why art matters, especially in the turbulent political weather of the twenty first century. Funny Weather brings together a career's worth of Laing's writing about art and culture, examining its role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Crudo
    Pre-order
    Crudo
    Shortlisted for the Goldsmith's Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the James Tait Black Award. Dive into a tale of love and loathing with the beach read of the summer. Kathy is a writer. Kathy is getting married. It's the summer of 2017 and the whole world is falling apart. From a Tuscan hotel for the super-rich to a Brexit-paralysed...
    By Olivia Laing
    Paperback
    $2800
    Pre-order
    Out 15 Sep 2026

More from General Fiction

View all
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people β€” but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    By Alison Espach
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Throne of Glass Box Set (Paperback)
    Enter the realm. Unleash the darkness. Live the legend. Discover the worldwide phenomenon of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Throne of Glass series in this gorgeous 8-book box set! In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not...
    By Sarah J. Maas
    Set
    $12400
    Elsewhere:
    $15500
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Score
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession... Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Score now for the perfect friends with benefits romance! He knows how to score, on and off the ice... Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn't have...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Dylan's Pick Dylan's Pick
    Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    By Allen Levi
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (5)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Goal
    Welcome to Briar U!Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy!Read The Goal now for the perfect forced proximity romance! She's good at achieving her goals . . . College senior Sabrina James has her whole future planned out: graduate from college, kick...
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Mistake
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Mistake now for the perfect second chance romance! He's a player in more ways than one . . . College junior John Logan can get any girl he wants....
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    On Mystic Lake
    One of the greatest storytellers of our time - Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school in England. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Left alone in the beautiful California house which was once a home, Annie...
    By Kristin Hannah
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • Project Hail Mary
    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Martian, offers a gripping new adventure in hard science fiction. With endorsement from notable figures such as Barack Obama and a slew of five-star reviews, this novel promises a thrilling and intellectually stimulating journey. Ryland Grace, a lone astronaut, finds himself on a...
    By Andy Weir
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • The Legacy
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from the Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Legacy now for the much-anticipated answer to the question: Where are they now? Four stories. Four couples. Three years of real life after graduation . . . A wedding....
    By Elle Kennedy
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Lizzy's Pick Lizzy's Pick
    Yesteryear
    A BOLD AND BITING SATIRE. WILL HAVE YOU GASPING TO THE FINAL PAGE β€” Nita Prose WICKEDLY FUNNY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND FRIGHTENINGLY PERCEPTIVE β€” Abigail Dean INVENTIVE, ADDICTIVE, A WILD RIDE β€” Ashley Audrain SHOT THROUGH WITH HUMOUR AND LACED WITH DARKNESS β€” Clare Mackintosh The Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid's Tale β€” Hannah Deitch My name was Natalie Heller...
    By Caro Claire Burke
    Paperback
    $2999
    Elsewhere:
    $3699
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Land
    Inspired by the mapping of Ireland in the mid nineteenth century, Land, theΒ new novel from the author of Hamnet, is at once intimate and epic: a portrait of a family navigating a legacy of upheaval and loss with love and hope. On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, TomΓ‘s and his reluctant son,Β Liam, are working for the great...
    By Maggie O'Farrell
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships today
  • New Release
    Shirl's Pick Shirl's Pick
    Sophie, Standing There
    From the award-winning, bestselling author ofΒ Sorrow and BlissΒ comes an achingly tender, poignant, funny and bittersweet story of love, loneliness and finding connection in the most unlikely of places. 'So smart, so funny, so moving - Mason has done it again, this time using behind the scenes of a literary festival to reveal the complexity of loneliness and how one woman...
    By Meg Mason
    Paperback
    $3099
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    (2)
    In Stock
    Ships today

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.

General Fiction lists from the team

Explore our curated lists from our heroes to find your next read!

The Latest at Book Hero

View all