Staff Picks

To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, and Mystery of Connie Converse

Howard Fishman (Dutton)

Singer-songwriter Connie Converse, who disappeared in 1974 at age 50, languished in obscurity until a 2004 WNYC broadcast renewed interest in her singular music and her puzzling story. The promise of a comprehensive treatment of her life is tantalizing for fans such as myself who have had to make do with the biographical scraps that have so far come to light. I’m looking forward to getting some answers (and some new mysteries, no doubt) about one of music’s great enigmas. —Marc Greenawalt, reviews editor

The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

Andrew Leland (Penguin Press)

I’ve been a fan of Leland’s since 2021, when I read his brilliant New York Times Magazine piece “Is There a Right Way to Act Blind?” Leland is, to my mind, part of a new vanguard of writers (among them Chloé Cooper Jones, who blurbed this book) who interrogate disability with refreshing intellectual rigor, and this book-length study of blindness masterfully melds histories both personal and cultural. —Sophia Stewart, news editor

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

David Grann (Doubleday)

Marooned on an island off the coast of Patagonia in 1741, crewmembers of the HMS Wager scavenged for shellfish, drank barrels of wine, and built cabins on the beach. Sounds like paradise? Not quite—they were starving, scurvyridden, and mutinous. Miraculously, two separate groups of survivors made it back to England—where they were court-martialed to determine which one was telling the truth about what happened. Brisk enough to read on a lazy summer afternoon, Grann’s swashbuckling saga will have you praising the lord for lounge chairs and mai tais. —David Adams, adult reviews director

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club

J. Ryan Stradal (Viking/Dorman)

Stradal’s novels set in Minnesota always resonate with this Minnesotan. There’s a strong sense of place, quirky characters who remind me of people I know, and dives into regional peculiarities like supper clubs. While Stradal’s voice is firmly an Upper Midwestern one, he explores universal themes: love, loss, regrets for one’s past mistakes, and longings for what might have been— plus, of course, the importance of family. —Claire Kirch, Midwest correspondent

Sing Her Down

Ivy Pochoda (MCD)

Since 2013’s Visitation Street, Pochoda’s gotten better with every book. I don’t know what she’s got up her sleeve for the next one, but it’s going to be tough to top this full-blooded western noir about two women who break out of prison during the pandemic and the detective on their tail. This thing goes big and loud and makes no apologies. —Jonathan Segura, executive editor