ODY New Books Collection

Collisions

"To his admirers, Luis W. Alvarez was the most accomplished, inventive, and versatile experimental physicist of his generation. During World War II, he achieved major breakthroughs in radar, played a key role in the Manhattan Project, and served as the lead scientific observer at the bombing of Hiroshima. In the decades that followed, he revolutionized particle physics with the hydrogen bubble chamber, developed an innovative X-ray method to search for hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Chephren, and shot melons at a rifle range to test his controversial theory about the Kennedy assassination. At the very end of his life, he collaborated with his son to demonstrate that an asteroid impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, igniting a furious debate that raged for years after his death. Alvarez was also a combative and relentlessly ambitious figure--widely feared by his students and associates--who testified as a government witness at the security hearing that destroyed the public career of his friend and colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer. In the first comprehensive biography of Alvarez, Alec Nevala-Lee vividly recounts one of the most compelling untold stories in modern science, a narrative overflowing with ideas, lessons, and anecdotes that will fascinate anyone with an interest in how genius and creativity collide with the problems of an increasingly challenging world."-- Provided by publisher

Culpability

"When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them each in the accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie's future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei's odd behavior tugs at Noah's suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident -- suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet's teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI."-- Dust jacket flap

Like

"A comprehensive and thought-provoking investigation into one of the most polarizing words in the English language."-- Provided by publisher

Necessary Fiction

"From the acclaimed author of Vagabonds!: an audacious and eye-opening exploration of LGBTQ+ life in contemporary Nigeria, seen through the lives of dozens of characters. What makes a family? Who gets to define it? And why does it matter? In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde poses these provocative questions and many more as they explore the lives and loves, hopes and fears of more than two dozen characters who are trying to define themselves in today's Nigeria. Across Lagos, one of Africa's largest urban areas and one of the world's most dynamic cities, Eloghosa's characters--queer, non-binary, poly, and trans--seek out love for themselves and their chosen partners, even as they risk ruining relationships with parents, spouses, family, and friends. As the novel unfolds and new characters step into the narrative, it becomes clear that many of them know each other, have been intimate with each other, have loved each other and have had their hearts broken by each other. As these characters work to establish themselves in the city's lively worlds of art, music, and entertainment, they come to learn that while once it may have been a necessary fiction to lie about themselves, their happiness can thrive only when they break free of calcified ideas of love, commitment, and famiy to find their truth. By turns unexpected and encouraging, Necessary Fiction is a wise and poignant novel about the contemporary queer experience."-- Provided by publisher

The Remembered Soldier

An extraordinary love story and a captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination: Flanders 1922. After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Countless women, responding to a newspaper ad, visit him there in the hope of finding their spouse who vanished in battle. One day a woman, Julienne, appears and recognizes Noon as her husband, the photographer Amand Coppens, and takes him home against medical advice. But their miraculous reunion doesn't turn out the way that Julienne wants her envious friends to believe. Only gradually do the two grow close, and Amand's biography is pieced together on the basis of Julienne's stories about him. But how can he be certain that she's telling the truth? In The Remembered Soldier, Anjet Daanje immerses us in the psyche of a war-traumatized man who has lost his identity. When Amand comes to doubt Julienne's word, the reader is caught up in a riveting spiral of confusion that only the greatest of literature can achieve.

Wanting

"Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She has a well-paid job, a nice boyfriend, and plans to marry and move into a luxury high-rise apartment. She's wanting for nothing-until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything-a successful career as an influencer, a millionaire American fiancé, and a bespoke mansion in the Beijing suburbs-throwing Lian's own reliable choices into high relief. As the two women rekindle their friendship, Wenyu reveals a shocking secret about a past love that pushes Lian to question her own relationship. A few neighborhoods away, aging architect Song Chen is forced to confront his own past and the dissolution of his marriage as he's tasked with building Wenyu's dream home. And when the dark side of Wenyu's enviable life emerges and threatens everything Lian and Wenyu have built for themselves, they must make a choice between the stable known and the frightening unknown that may have devastating and unexpected consequences. In girlhood memories and karaoke afternoons in Xidan Square, in aspirational YouTube channels and billboard ads, in private hotel rendezvous and secret WeChat messages, Claire Jia's debut novel is a love letter to friendship; a powder keg of impossible, interwoven desires; a siren song that explores why, even as it destroys us, we always want more." -- Provided by publisher

We Are Green and Trembling

"Deep in the wilds of the New World, Antonio de Erauso begins to write a letter to his aunt, the prioress of the Basque convent he escaped as a young girl. Since fleeing a dead-end life as a nun, he's become Antonio and undertaken monumental adventures: he has been a cabin boy, mule driver, shopkeeper, soldier, and conquistador; he has wielded his sword and slashed with his dagger. Now, caring for two Guaraní girls he rescued from enslavement and hounded by the army he deserted, this protean protagonist contemplates one more metamorphosis ... Based on the life of Antonio de Erauso, a real figure of the Spanish conquest, We Are Green and Trembling is a queer baroque satire that blends elements of the picaresque with surreal storytelling. Its rich and wildly imaginative language forms a searing criticism of conquest, colonialism, and religious tyranny, as well as of the treatment of women and indigenous people. It is a masterful subversion of Latin American history with a trans character at its center, finding in the rainforest a magically alive space where transformation is not only possible but necessary."-- Provided by publisher

Slip

"Written by journalist and professor at the University of Texas-Austin Mallary Tenore Tarpley, Slip offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding eating disorder recovery and interweaves poignant personal stories, immersive reporting, and cutting-edge science. When Mallary Tenore Tarpley lost her mother at eleven years old, she wanted to stop time. If growing up meant living without her mother, then she wanted to stay little forever. What started as small acts of food restriction soon turned into a full-blown eating disorder, and a year later, Tarpley was admitted to Boston's Children's Hospital. With honesty and grace, Slip chronicles Tarpley's childhood struggles with anorexia to her present-day experiences grappling with recovery. This book tells Tarpley's story, but it also transcends her personal narrative. A journalist by trade, Tarpley interviewed and surveyed hundreds of patients, doctors, and researchers to provide a deeper understanding of eating disorder treatment. She draws on this original reporting, as well as cutting-edge science, to illuminate what has changed in the years since she was first diagnosed. As Tarpley came to learn, "full recovery" from an eating disorder is complicated. And that idea provides the basis for the groundbreaking new framework explored in this book: that there is a "middle place" between sickness and full recovery, a place where slips are accepted as part of the process but progress is always possible. With new insights and an uplifting message, Slip brings much-needed attention to an issue that affects many. It offers a beacon of hope with its revolutionary perspective on recovery. This inspiring and life-affirming book is a must-read for individuals with eating disorders, their loved ones, educators, medical professionals, and anyone seeking to understand eating disorders and the path to recovery."-- Provided by publisher

Positive Obsession

"A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work."-- Provided by publisher

The Payback

"Jada Williams is good at judging people by their looks. From across the mall, she can tell not only someone's inseam and pants size, but exactly what style they need to transform their life. Too bad she's no longer using this superpower as a wardrobe designer to Hollywood stars, but for minimum wage plus commission at the Glendale mall. When Jada is fired yet again, she is forced to outrun the newly instated Debt Police who are out for blood. But Jada, like any great antihero, is not going to wait for the cops to come kick her around. With the help of two other debt-burdened mall coworkers, she hatches a plan for revenge. Together the three women plan a heist to erase their student loans forever and get back at the system that promised them everything and then tried to take it back."-- Provided by publisher

The Möbius Book

Adrift after a sudden breakup and its ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey's appetite vanished, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God. Through relationships, travel, reading, and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith's absence and reemergence. She and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and of narrative itself. The result is a book of uncommon vulnerability and wisdom, and heartbreaking -- and heart-mending -- exploration of endings and beginnings. A hybrid work with no beginning or ending, readable from either side, The Möbius Book troubles the line between memory and fiction with an openhearted defense of faith's power, and inherent danger.

Lili Is Crying

"Lili Is Crying, Hélène Bessette's debut novel, explores the fraughtness and depth of the troubling relationship between Lili and her mother Charlotte. With a near-mythic quality, Bessette's stripped-back prose evokes at once the pain of thwarted love--of desire run cold--and the promise of renewal. Lauded by critics on its initial publication in 1953 for its boundary-pushing style, Lili Is Crying catapulted Bessette into cult status in France. The novel is moving and maddening in turns--the characters trapped in their own cruelty and sorrows--but in its spareness it feels true: 'Show me a woman who has actually chosen something.' Championed by Raymond Queneau, then an editor at Gallimard, Bessette's novels were hailed for their experimentation, unusual economy of expression, rarity, strange humor, and their sheer vivacity." -- Provided by publisher

The Headache

"Virtually everyone has experienced a headache--a nuisance arising from occasional stress or as payback for last night's overindulgence. But for hundreds of millions of people, headaches are a different beast. From blinding migraines to severe headache disorders known as 'clusters,' recurring head pain can upend entire seasons of life. And perhaps owing to the ordinariness of the very word 'headache,' these disorders are frequently trivialized. In The Headache, veteran science journalist Tom Zeller Jr. takes readers on an odyssey both intimate and panoramic, through his own decades-long struggle with excruciating head pain, and across the scientific landscape of a group of disorders that is--to the chagrin of sufferers--as much a curse as a cultural punchline. He visits cutting-edge clinics; interviews dozens of doctors, neurologists, and fellow headache patients; participates in clinical trials for multimillion-dollar new medicines; and even experiments with psilocybin in search of relief. Along the way, Zeller traces the longer arc of mystery around headaches, from prehistoric skull surgery to Virginia Woolf's assertion that, in the throes of a migraine, 'language runs dry,' to reveal how headaches became one of the most underresearched afflictions in medicine--and how that is slowly starting to change. With warmth, wit, and infectious curiosity, Zeller's search for the origins of his own headaches becomes a journey into the inner workings of the human nervous system, and an illuminating look at the nature of pain itself."-- Dust jacket flap

A Flower Traveled in My Blood

"The epic, true story of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, grandmothers who fought to find their stolen grandchildren during Argentina's brutal dictatorship."-- Provided by publisher

Florenzer

Leonardo da Vinci, twelve years old and a bastard, leaves the Tuscan countryside to join his father in Florence with dreams of becoming a painter. Francesco Salviati, also a bastard and scorned for his too-dark skin, dedicates himself to the Catholic Church with grand hopes of salvation. Towering above them both is Lorenzo de' Medici, barely a man, yet soon to be the patriarch of the world's wealthiest and most influential bank. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florence's streets.-- Publisher description

Fake Work

"In this genre-bending memoir, Leigh Claire La Berge reflects on her stint at one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the country and what it teaches us about the absurdity of work-for readers of Bullshit Jobs and fans of Office Space and Sorry to Bother You The year is 1999, and the world is about to end. The only thing standing between corporate America and certain annihilation is a freshly employed twenty-two year old and her three-ring binders. While headlines blazed with doomsaying prophecies about the looming Y2K apocalypse, our protagonist Leigh Claire was quickly introduced to the mysterious workings of The Process-a mythical and ever-changing corporate ethos The Anderson People (her fellow consultants) believe holds world saving powers. Her heroic task: printing physical copies of spreadsheets and sending them to a secure storage facility somewhere in the bowels of New Jersey. After a series of equally mundane tasks, and one well timed deployment of an anecdote about a legendary quarterback, she soon found herself jet-setting on the firm's dime to thirty-minute lunch meetings in Johannesburg, giving impromptu lectures to Japanese executives about limiting liability at the end of the world, and leaping from burning vehicles on Mexico City's busiest highway. As present-day Leigh Claire reflects on the inanity of her former employment, we're introduced to a carousel of characters plucked from a Mike Judge screenplay, and are treated to post-facto theoretical interjections about the nature of financialized capitalism that recall David Graeber at his best."-- Provided by publisher

Everything Evolves

How the science of evolution explains how everything came to be, from bacteria and blue whales to cell phones, cities, and artificial intelligence Everything Evolves reveals how evolutionary dynamics shape the world as we know it and how we are harnessing the principles of evolution in pursuit of many goals, such as increasing the global food supply and creating artificial intelligence capable of evolving its own solutions to thorny problems. Taking readers on an astonishing journey, Mark Vellend describes how all observable phenomena in the universe can be understood through two sciences. The first is physics. The second is the science of evolvable systems. Vellend shows how this Second Science unifies biology and culture and how evolution gives rise to everything from viruses and giraffes to nation-states, technology, and us. He discusses how the idea of evolution had precedents in areas such as language and economics long before it was made famous by Darwin, and how only by freeing ourselves of the notion that the study of evolution must start with biology can we appreciate the true breadth of evolutionary processes. A sweeping tour of the natural and social sciences, Everything Evolves is an essential introduction to one of the two key pillars to the scientific enterprise and an indispensable guide to understanding some of the most difficult challenges of the Anthropocene.

Dwelling

"A dazzling, surrealist debut novel about a young woman's quest for house and home-from New York to the Texas hinterlands and, maybe, back again."-- Provided by publisher

Daikon

"A sweeping and suspenseful novel of love and war, set in Japan during the final days of World War II, with a shocking historical premise: three atomic bombs were actually delivered to the Pacific--not two--and when one of them falls into the hands of the Japanese, the fate of a couple that has been separated from one another becomes entangled with the fate of this strange new device."-- Provided by publisher

The Club

"In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and gathering at a female-only Residence known as The American Girls' Club in Paris. Opened in 1893, The Club was the center of expatriate living and of dedication to a calling in the fine arts, and singularly harbored a generation of independent, talented, and driven American women. Now in The Club, curator, art historian, and podcast host Jennifer Dasal presents the never-before-told story of the Club, the philanthropists who created it, and the artists it housed. These women forged connections in the arts and letters with luminaries like Auguste Rodin and Gertrude Stein or became activists through their relationships with the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst. But just as importantly, these women's lives revealed the power of the Club itself, and the way that having a safe home for single women of ambition allowed them to grow as teachers, artists, suffragists, and people."-- Publisher's description