A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker * Kirkus Reviews
“Earnest and engaging.” —The New Yorker
A personal and analytical essay collection from culture critic Lawrence Burney that is a personal and analytical look at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him.
There are moments in our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression. These moments inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward.
In a time when music is spurring Black Americans’ connection with Africans on the Continent, culture critic Lawrence Burney takes us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, reminisces on seeing his mother perform as the opening act of a Gil Scott-Heron show when he was a child, and sits at a Maryland crab feast with family, assessing how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation. Burney explores these profound interactions with incisive and energizing prose, offering us a personal and critical perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.
No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney’s search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, this “powerful collection of essays” (Rolling Stone) is like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise. - (Simon and Schuster)
Booklist Reviews
The art that stays with us—music, photography, literature—often feels like it reached us at the exact moment in our lives when we needed it most. In this essay collection, Burney explores those encounters in his own life, from his childhood involvement in the Baltimore music scene to the career as a music critic he would build in adulthood. Burney's love of music is deeply intertwined with his friends, his family, and the Baltimore neighborhoods where he grew up. In each essay, he combines his personal connection to the art with a deep knowledge of the social contexts that surrounded each work's creation and shaped its reception. Burney's tastes are wide ranging: he's as apt to zoom in on the work of specific Baltimore neighborhoods as he is to explore the Nigerian artists making it big on the international stage. A frank and joyous celebration of Black art as well as a musical coming-of-age story, No Sense in Wishing will appeal to fans of Shea Serrano's Hip-Hop (and Other Things) (2021) and Danyel Smith's Shine Bright (2022). Copyright 2025 Booklist Reviews.
