On the cover of this Sunday’s Book Review, Orlando Patterson reviews Touré’s new book, “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?,” a work that examines the many meanings of being black in a post-civil-rights era.

Mr. Patterson writes:

For all its occasional contradictions (why the put-down of the comedian Byron Allen for his Middle American cultural fluency?) and omissions (there is no consideration of the ways immigrant blacks and mixed-race people are contributing to post-black hetero­geneity), this is one of the most acutely observed accounts of what it is like to be young, black and middle-class in contemporary America. Touré inventively draws on a range of evidence — auto­biography, music, art, interviews, comedy and popular social analysis — for a performance carried through with unsparing honesty, in a distinctive voice that is often humorous, occasionally wary and defensive, but always intensely engaging.

Podcast Archive

Listen to previous podcasts from the Book Review.

On this week’s podcast, Touré talks about his new book; Maureen Dowd reviews the new memoir by the film critic Roger Ebert; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.