ODY New Books Collection

The Dog Who Followed the Moon

"'There are times when we have done everything we can do. Then we must learn to step back and allow the universe to play out in all its unfathomable wonder...' Deep in the mountain forests, a young pup named Amaya wanders lost and alone, until an aging wolf rescues her from a terrifying encounter with his vicious pack. To try and reunite Amaya with her parents, the unlikely pair embark on a journey to follow the moon. Eerie woods, forgotten cities, and other obstacles await Amaya and the Wolf on their adventure. As they make their way through the wilderness, the two learn profound lessons about love, sacrifice, and the importance of embracing change." -- from back cover

Freedom

"For sixteen years, Angela Merkel was Chancellor of Germany and at the forefront of European and international politics. In her memoir, she looks back on her life in two German states--East Germany until 1990, and reunified Germany thereafter. How did she, coming from the East, rise to the top of the Christian Democratic Union to become the first woman to hold the Office of Chancellor? And how did she then become one of the most powerful heads of government in the Western world? What guided her? Angela Merkel recounts daily life in the chancellor's office as well as the dramatic days and nights when she made far-reaching decisions in Berlin, Brussels, and beyond."-- Publisher description

Seven Deadly Sins

"Seven Deadly Sins will explore the underlying nature of the seven deadly sins, their neuroscientific and psychological basis, and their origin in our genes. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Pride. Envy. Lust. Anger. These are The Seven Deadly Sins, the vices of humankind that define immorality. But do these sins really represent moral failings, or are they simply important and useful biological functions that humans need to survive? Instead of being acts of immorality, are they really just a result of how our bodies, our psyches, and our brains in particular, are wired? In Seven Deadly Sins: The Biology of Being Human, Guy Leschziner, a professor of neurology, dares to turn much of what society thinks of as morality on its head and to ask these controversial questions. Leschziner takes readers on an exploration of the Seven Deadly Sins as he looks at their neuroscientific and psychological bases, their origin in our genes, and, crucially, how certain medical disorders may give rise to them. He introduces us to patients whose physical and psychological conditions have given rise to behaviours that have for centuries been labelled as "sin" and how these behaviours might actually be evolutionary imperatives that preserve the tribe and ensure the wellbeing of our societies. In Seven Deadly Sins, a book certain to cause debate and raise controversy, Guy Leschziner, a writer who has explored the mysteries of our sleeping brains and the odd crossed wires of our five senses, asks whether these traits truly represent sin, or simply reflect our intrinsic drive to survive and thrive."-- Provided by publisher

On the Calculation of Volume

"Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November 18th repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: "That's how little the activities of one person matter on the 18th of November.") Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her memories of the past light up inside the text like old-fashioned flash bulbs. The first volume's gravitational pull-a force inverse to its constriction- has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (the thrilling shifts, the minute movements, the slant wit, the slowing of time), and its spell is utterly intoxicating. Solvej Balle's seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects. As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle's fiction consists of writing that listens: 'Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.'"-- Provided by publisher

The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl From Milan

Imagine a child, a daydreamer, one of those boys who is always gazing out windows. His adoring grandmother, busy in the kitchen, keeps an eye on him. The child stares at the building opposite, watching a black-haired girl as she dances recklessly on her balcony. He is in love. And a love like this can push a child to extremes. He can become an explorer or a cabin boy, a cowboy or castaway; he can fight duels to the death, or even master unfamiliar languages. His grandmother has told him about the entrance to the underworld, and he knows the story of Orpheus's failed rescue mission. He could do better, he thinks; he wouldn't fail to bring that dark-haired up from the underground if she were dead, and it only he had the chance. A short, sharp, perfectly styled and unforgettable novel about love, desire, memory, and death by the Strega Prize winning Italian author of Ties and International Booker Prize, longlisted author of The House on Via Gemito. -- Publisher description

Mondrian

"The extraordinary and surprising life of Piet Mondrian, whose unprecedented geometric art revolutionized modern painting, architecture, graphic art, dress design, and much more."-- Provided by publisher

Linguaphile

A celebration of the beauty and mystery of language and how it shapes our lives, our loves, and our world.

The Last of Its Kind

"The great auk is one of the most tragic and documented examples of extinction. A flightless bird that bred primarily on the remote islands of the North Atlantic, the last of its kind were killed in Iceland in 1844. Gísli Pálsson draws on firsthand accounts from the Icelanders who hunted the last great auks to bring to life a bygone age of Victorian scientific exploration while offering vital insights into the extinction of species. Pálsson vividly recounts how British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton set out for Iceland to collect specimens only to discover that the great auks were already gone. At the time, the Victorian world viewed extinction as an impossibility or trivialized it as a natural phenomenon. Pálsson chronicles how Wolley and Newton documented the fate of the last birds through interviews with the men who killed them, and how the naturalists' Icelandic journey opened their eyes to the disappearance of species as a subject of scientific concern--and as something that could be caused by humans. Blending a richly evocative narrative with rare, unpublished material as well as insights from ornithology, anthropology, and Pálsson's own North Atlantic travels, The Last of Its Kind reveals how the saga of the great auk opens a window onto the human causes of mass extinction."-- Provided by publisher

Hollow

"At eighteen, Bailey Williams bolted from her strict Mormon upbringing to a Marine recruiting office to enlist as a 2600--a military linguist. But the first language the Marine Corps taught her wasn't Arabic, Farsi, or Dari. It was how Marines speak to, and about, women. There are only three kinds of women in the Marine Corps, she was told: you can be a bitch, a dyke, or a whore. Determined to prove she's not whatever it is the men around her believe a woman to be, Private Williams turned to an eating disorder, intending to show her discipline through the visible testament of bone. She ran endurance distances on an increasingly Spartan diet, shoving through her own body's resistance. Pushed to the brink by a leadership and a culture that demands women shrink themselves, she finally looked to the women around her, and began to wonder what else she was losing. Quietly but inexorably, the power of other women's stories whispered an alternative path to what it means to be a woman, and a warrior. Hollow is a story for anyone whose identity has been prescribed to them--and has dared question if there is another way to live." -- Provided by the publisher

Citizen

The 42nd President of the United States writes about his life since leaving the White House

Bandit Heaven

"From multiple New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin comes the thrilling true story of the most infamous hangout for bandits, thieves and murderers of all time-and the lawmen tasked with rooting them out. Robbers Roost, Brown's Hole, and Hole in the Wall were three hideouts that collectively were known to outlaws as "Bandit Heaven." During the 1880s and '90s these remote locations in Wyoming and Utah harbored hundreds of train and bank robbers, horse and cattle thieves, the occasional killer, and anyone else with a price on his head. Clavin's Bandit Heaven is the entertaining story of these tumultuous times and the colorful characters who rode the Outlaw Trail through the frigid mountain passes and throat-parching deserts that connected the three hideouts-well-guarded enclaves no sensible lawman would enter. There are the "star" residents like gregarious Butch Cassidy and his mostly silent sidekick the Sundance Kid, and an array of fascinating supporting players like the cold-blooded Kid Curry, the gang leader, and "Black Jack" Ketchum (who had the dubious distinction of being decapitated during a hanging), among others. Most of the hard-riding action takes place in the mid- to late-1890s when Bandit Heaven came to be one of the few safe places left as the law closed in on the dwindling number of active outlaws. Most were dead by the beginning of the 20th century, gunned down by a galvanized law-enforcement system seeking rewards and glory. Ultimately, only Cassidy and Sundance escaped . . . to meet their fate 6000 miles away, becoming legends when they died in a fusillade of lead. Bandit Heaven is a thrilling read, filled with action, indelible characters, and some poignance for the true end of the Wild West outlaw."-- Provided by publisher

Transforming Presidential Healthcare

"Transforming Presidential Healthcare offers a compelling journey through the corridors of power as seen through the eyes of Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, an esteemed physician who served 'five and a half' US presidents. Drawing from his rich experiences tending to the medical needs of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, Dr. Kuhlman sheds light on the evolving landscape of healthcare within the highest echelons of political leadership. This groundbreaking and eye-opening book covers everything from preparation for and treatment of biological and chemical threats to the physical and mental requirements to serve as president-plus all the other elements that go into providing expert healthcare for the presidents of the United States and those who support them." -- backcover

Canoes

"Ricocheting off of the book's exhilarating central novella and 7 short stories, the women we meet in Canoes are by turns indelibly witty, insightful, intimate, bracing, and profoundly interconnected. "When did I start placing myself in the fable?" a young Parisian wonders as she tells her son the legend of Buffalo Bill, a spectral presence atop the mountain in their small Colorado town. She has just moved to the United States and everything disorients her - suburbs stretching along reptilian highways, a new house rigged like a studio set, but most of all, the sound of her husband's voice. Sam speaks with a different tone in English, not the soft and swift timbre of his native French. From a voice made new, Maylis de Kerangal opens up a torrent of curiosities, hauntings, and questions about place and language. The women of these stories are mad about: stones, molds of human jaws, voicemail recordings, sonic waves, UFOs, and always how the texture of human voice entwines with their obsessions. With cosmic harmonics, vivid imagery, and a revelatory composition, Canoes will leave readers forever altered." -- Amazon

Unredacted

"To a unique degree, Christopher Steele has been an eyewitness observer of modern Russian history. He was a British diplomat and intelligence professional in Moscow when the Soviet Union was collapsing. Steele was there when the putsch against Mikhail Gorbachev took place and when Boris Yeltsin took over the newly independent Russia. After Vladimir Putin came to power, Steele rose to become one of British government's leading Russia experts and played a central role in the investigation into the Kremlin-ordered murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Then, in 2016, he wrote a series of explosive reports about the then presidential candidate Donald Trump and his links to Russia. Now known to the world as the "Steele Dossier," these intelligence documents drew the world's attention to Russia's relationship with Trump--and reluctantly thrust Steele into the center of a global maelstrom. Since Trump's election, he has quietly continued his work. Indeed, Steele has had even better access to sources of information and intelligence on Russia--ones that have given him a privileged view of what's going on inside the Kremlin, and how much we in the West should worry about it. In Unredacted, Steele shares for the first time what that inside view looks like, how he came to the point of gaining such a level of insight, and what Western governments--and all of us--can and should do to counter this generational threat." -- Jacket

Heartbreak Is the National Anthem

"An intimate look at the life and music of modern pop's most legendary figure, Taylor Swift, from leading music journalist Rob Sheffield."-- Publisher website

The Icon & the Idealist

"In the 1910s, as the birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett. While Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, Dennett's name has largely faded from public knowledge. Each held a radically different vision for what reproductive autonomy and birth control access should look like in America ... Meticulously researched and vividly drawn, [this book] reveals how and why these two women came to activism, the origins of the clash between them, and the ways in which their missteps and breakthroughs have reverberated across American society for generations."-- Provided by publisher

Women's
Hotel

"From the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist, a poignant and funny debut novel about the residents of a women's hotel in 1960s New York City."-- Provided by publisher

Water, Water

"In more than sixty new poems, Billy Collins writes with joy and wonder about the beauty and irony of daily life. The best poetry, he believes, begins with clarity and ends in mystery, and in Water, Water we encounter a writer endlessly astonished by the world all around. Turning his eye to the cat drinking from the swimming pool or the nurse calling your name in the waiting room or the astronaut reading Emily Dickinson while orbiting earth, Collins captures images and moments that mean so much more than they might initially seem. With a voice both simple and melodic, hospitable and lyrical, the poetry of Billy Collins asks each of us to slow down and notice the commonplace in order to discover the sublime. No wonder The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal both call him one of America's favorite poets."-- Provided by publisher

Under the Eye of the Big Bird

"In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of 'Mothers.' Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings-but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it."-- Provided by publisher

There Is No Ethan

"Part memoir, part explosive window into the mind of a catfish, a thrilling personal account of three women coming face-to-face with an internet predator and teaming up to expose them. In 2011, three successful and highly educated women fell head over heels for the brilliant and charming Ethan Schuman. Unbeknownst to the others, each exchanged countless messages with Ethan, staying up late into the evenings to deepen their connections with this seemingly perfect man. His detailed excuses about broken webcams and complicated international calling plans seemed believable, as did last minute trip cancellations. After all, why would he lie? Ethan wasn't after money - he never convinced his marks to shell out thousands of dollars for some imagined crisis. Rather, he ensnared these women in a web of intense emotional intimacy. After the trio independently began to question inconsistencies in their new flame's stories, they managed to find one another and uncover a greater deception than they could've ever imagined. As Anna Akbari and the women untangled their catish's web, they found dozens of other victims and realized that without a proper crime, there was no legal reason for "Ethan" to ever stop. THERE IS NO ETHAN catalogues Akbari's experience as both victim and observer. By looking at the bigger picture of where these stories unfold - a world where technology mediates our relationships; where words and images are easily manipulated; and where truth, reality, and identity have become slippery terms - Akbari gives a page-turning and riveting examination of why stories like Ethan's matter for us all."-- Provided by publisher