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No Sense in Wishing

Essays

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No Sense in Wishing

By: Lawrence Burney
Narrated by: Lawrence Burney
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About this listen

 A BEST BOOK OF 2025: The New Yorker • Vulture • Kirkus Reviews

“Earnest and engaging.” —The New Yorker
“Among the most profound and dazzling debuts I've ever read.” —Kiese Laymon, award-winning author of Heavy: An American Memoir

An 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 throughout our lives when we discover an artist, an album, a film, or a cultural artifact that leaves a lasting impression, helping inform how we understand the world, and ourselves, moving forward. In No Sense in Wishing, Lawrence 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.

In a time when music is spearheading Black Americans’ connection with Africans on The Continent, Burney takes trips to cover the bubbling creative scenes in Lagos and Johannesburg that inspire teary-eyed reflections of self and belonging. Seeing his mother perform as the opening act at a Gil Scott-Heron show as a child inspires an essay about parent-child relationships and how personal taste is often inherited. And a Maryland crab feast with family facilitates an assessment of how the Black people in his home state have historically improvised paths for their liberation.

Taking us on a journey from the streets of Baltimore to the concert halls of Lagos, No Sense in Wishing is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Burney’s search for self. With its gutsy and uncompromising criticism alongside intimate personal storytelling, it’s like an album that hits all the right notes, from a promising writer on the rise. Art & Literature Essays Journalists, Editors & Publishers Music Africa Baltimore
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Lawrence Burney does a great job narrating his life through the musical influences that touched him from his childhood to fatherhood. When you think of Baltimore, you think of medicine (John Hopkins) and drugs (The Wire), which is why I was curious about Burney's experiences growing up there. It's authentic and interesting to follow him from Baltimore, to New York and finally Africa, while doing his very best to coparent his daughter. Really good.

The Soundtrack of a Life

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