A narrator named Daniel (“You are Daniel-who-handles-it. Daniel-who-is-there. Daniel-who-doesn’t-need-anything-because-Daniel-is-fine”) recounts various moments in his life, starting from childhood and moving through multiple failed relationships and the tentative beginnings of one that he believes may heal him. Though brief, the book covers a good deal of emotional ground without flinching from what life inflicts. It begins with the narrator in a troubled marriage, remembering a key moment under a Toronto streetlight: “Two minutes of just being present in my own life.” He then recalls other important moments, from a childhood hockey game to his time playing in a band to co-founding a tech company, before focusing on the women in his life. At times joyful and heartbreaking, the journey will appeal to those who have experienced similar love and loss. Throughout, the narrator is often paralyzed by doubt, circling his choices as he tries to understand where things went wrong. As a result, Daniel’s musings sometimes read more like a therapy journal than a cohesive novella. Characters are introduced, only for the narrator to retreat from them, as if theirs are not his stories to tell: “It doesn’t belong to me alone and some of it belongs to people who never asked to be in this story.” The book’s sensitive handling of a character’s transgender journey is a great strength, revealing the loving heart of the protagonist. More moments like these might have helped deepen readers’ connection to Daniel’s journey. For many readers, though, the book will read more like extended self-criticism than a fully realized narrative; the theme of romantic relationships is so central to the work that other aspects feel diminished or unreal.

For many fans, the consensus “big three” rappers are J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake, distinct artists from different backgrounds and with a history of collaboration. And, more infamously, feuding: Beef entangling all three consumed much of 2024, culminating in Lamar’s savage Drake diss track, “Not Like Us,” which won him a Song of the Year Grammy and brought him to the Super Bowl halftime stage. But that spectacle is part of a complex, much longer story about hip-hop’s ongoing engagement with social-justice themes. McCool, a professor at West Chester University, and Hopkins, an arts journalist, begin their story with hip-hop landmarks like “The Message” and exploring how the genre’s commercial growth in the 1990s both bolstered and complicated conscious rap—N.W.A and Tupac Shakur, for instance, could at once deliver potent criticism of racist policing while perpetuating misogynistic stereotypes. Cole, a native of North Carolina, broke through in the 2010s by delivering raps that openly addressed socioeconomic challenges in Black communities; raised in Compton, California, Lamar touched on similar issues in more personal ways, while songs like “Alright” were embraced as empowerment anthems within the Black Lives Matter movement. McCool and Hopkins lean heavily on biographical background on the genre in general and the two MCs in particular and too often decline into platitudes. (“With their combined releases, Kendrick and Cole have reached unparalleled heights.”) The book is at its strongest when discussing the “Not Like Us” contretemps, which to them represents not just a beef but a pivotal cultural moment that divided hip-hop fandom. A stronger book might more directly address the stakes of that split.

Going with the idea that any household-name celebrity deserves a biography, this one gets the job done. Olivia Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, in 1948; in 1954, her father accepted a job at the University of Melbourne, taking the family with him. After Newton-John’s mother gave her an acoustic guitar, the teenager started performing at coffee shops, scored a TV appearance, moved to London in hopes of snagging a record contract, and did precisely that. Newton-John’s voice would ultimately win her four Grammys and a career-resuscitating starring role in 1978’s smash movie musical Grease, which both embalmed and spoofed her squeaky-clean image. By all accounts herein—Hild interviewed a good number of the singer’s friends, acquaintances, and collaborators—Newton-John was a human spigot of kindness, which may make her a saint, but it doesn’t make her especially interesting. If anyone ever said a negative word about his subject, Hild apparently hasn’t heard it. (Going by this book, the naughtiest thing Newton-John ever did was in her younger years, when she romanced a married man or two.) But Hild does well despite the lack of out-of-the-way drama in his subject’s life. While not a prose stylist, he dutifully chronicles Newton-John’s professional ups and downs: a record-label imbroglio, her tabloid-fodder divorce, her rampant charity work and environmental activism, and her recurring, ultimately losing, battle with breast cancer. (Newton-John died in 2022.) To his credit, Hild doesn’t try to manufacture luridness, although one wonders if he might have considered not taking everything his ostensibly egoless subject said at face value—e.g., “For Olivia…whether or not the album became a hit was not the point.” Are we so sure it wasn’t?

The author, a retired business executive, reflects on his retracing of the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark National Historic Trail. He and his wife, Carmen, twice traversed the route (first in 2003-2006 and then again in 2007 and 2009) by car, RV, and foot. After his wife received a subsequent diagnosis of an uncurable degenerative neurological disease, Ton realized that the most important things he remembered from his time on the trail were not trivial facts pertaining to American history but the experiences he’d shared with Carmen, whom he describes as “My compass. My co-captain.” The book traces not only the author’s exploration of the titular trail, but also the tangential historic sites and monuments associated with Lewis and Clark, from the Natchez Trace (a forest trail in the Deep South where Lewis died) to Monticello (Virginia home to President Thomas Jefferson, who commissioned the expedition). Each chapter blends Ton’s account of his adventures with Carmen (including flat tires and other unexpected moments) with the histories of the various landmarks along the trail. The historical narrative provides ample context on the 19th-century political and social milieu that sparked the expedition, and the author is careful to honor the stories of Lewis and Clark’s travel companions, including the Lemhi Shoshone woman Sacagawea and her son, Jean Baptiste. The work pointedly acknowledges “the diversity, resilience, and sovereignty” of the various Indigenous communities Ton encountered on his journey as the author ruminates on the genocidal tragedies associated with America’s westward expansion. While the historical narratives—which are well researched, with both primary and secondary sources cited in a bibliography—are impressive, this is ultimately a love story about the ways in which exploring America strengthened the bonds between Ton and Carmen. “Maps can take you to a place,” the author notes, poignantly adding, “[but] love teaches you how to arrive.”

Unlikely platinum albums don’t come any more unlikely than the Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut: The trio hailed from a city with no national profile (Milwaukee), had a lead songwriter still in his teens, and played acoustic instruments in an era of punk guitars and New Wave synths. But their snappy songs, inspired by alt-rock misfits like Jonathan Richman and suffused with emotional (especially sexual) despair, gradually found an audience. Today, as drummer-novelist Brown notes in this book’s introduction, the opening riff of “Blister in the Sun” is a clap-along staple at baseball games. The chief virtue of Brown’s study—part of the “33 ⅓” series of short books on classic albums—is that it recovers the strangeness of the album’s creation and conception. With little cash or scene credibility, the band couldn’t have recorded the album without a $10,000 loan from drummer Victor DeLorenzo’s father; DeLorenzo’s kit was a spartan contraption featuring a “tranceaphone,” a floor tom capped with a metal bushel basket; unlike most guitar albums, Brian Ritchie’s bass usually delivers the melody line; they scored a gig opening for the Pretenders just by busking outside the venue; their record label rejected them at first but changed its tune after staffers kept playing their tape in the office. Frontman Gordon Gano is hard-pressed to explain the genesis and meaning of the album’s now-iconic lyrics—what does it mean to blister in the sun, anyhow?—but his pleading voice connected with young fans who shared cassette dubs of the album like samizdat. Brown is an unabashed fan—the book closes with him giddily meeting Gano at an Atlanta concert—but it’s the just-the-facts nature of his reportage that best serves the book because the facts are fittingly offbeat.