What to buy in the NYRB summer book sale, a tropical paranoid thriller, and a terrific new RnB album

Roundup 06/25/2023

Greetings from Read Max HQ, and welcome to our weekly roundup column, in which I pick out some worthwhile and often overlooked books, articles, movies, and music to recommend to paying subscribers.

Anyway. For this week’s round-up I’ve got:

• What books to buy in NYRB annual 40 percent-off sale;

• a paranoid arthouse political thriller set in Tahiti; and

• a great new RnB album from a singer with better taste than me.

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Now, the roundup. First, as always, a dispatch from the future: