Six Pack

Gripping inquiries into all aspects of humanity

AND THE ROOTS OF RHYTHM REMAIN

Producer Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, R.E.M.) follows roving threads of sound—brass in Istanbul, Cuban Jam Sessions, Congolese rumba—and the artists they influenced, from Bob Marley to David Byrne. (Ze Books)

ABORTION

Since the fall of Roe, Jessica Valenti has tracked the state of reproductive rights from local bans to ballot measures; ahead of a pivotal election, she lays out the landscape, presenting a cogent case that bodily autonomy wins votes. (Crown)

AN IMAGE OF MY NAME ENTERS AMERICA

From the expansive mind of novelist, poet, and critic Lucy Ives, stylish, sweeping essays that consider the lure of period rooms, Alanis Morissette, Heidegger, and more. (Graywolf)

NO ROAD LEADING BACK

VF contributor Chris Heath traces the harrowing accounts of 12 Jewish prisoners who escaped the Holocaust killing site at Ponar, Lithuania—as well as those of bystanders—in this investigation of truth and silence. (Schocken)

RECOGNIZING THE STRANGER

This succinct and thorough study of humanism and turning points collects novelist Isabella Hammad's Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture on Palestine, delivered in September 2023, and a substantial afterword written this year. (Black Cat)

BY THE FIRE WE CARRY

Rebecca Nagle, a Cherokee journalist, examines the thorny history of a murder case that ballooned into a question of tribal land rights in a narrative as propulsive and affecting as it is infuriating. (Harper)

Keziah Weir