Tired of the same old nonfiction? Sick of sometimey music journalism? Seek out and acquire a copy of Kodwo Eshun’s mind-melting textual tilt-a-whirl, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet, 1998). Eshun takes everyone from Sun Ra and John Coltrane to Kool Keith and Grandmaster Flash and sieves them through the theories of everyone from Paul Virilio and Gilles Deleuze to Marshall McLuhan and Manuel De Landa. It’s one part tradition-trouncing polemic, one part trip-hop philosophy, and one part ice-cream headache buzz, so take it slow.

—Roy Christopher, 17 July 2009