ODY New Books Collection

1942

"By the end of the Second World War, more than seventy million people across the globe had been killed, most of them civilians. Cities from Warsaw to Tokyo lay in ruins, and fully half of the world's two billion people had been mobilized, enslaved, or displaced. In 1942, historian Peter Fritzsche offers a gripping, ground-level portrait of the decisive year when World War II escalated to global catastrophe. With the United States joining the fight following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, all the world's great powers were at war. The debris of ships sunk by Nazi submarines littered US beaches, Germans marauded in North Africa, and the Japanese swept through the Pacific. Military battles from Singapore to Stalingrad riveted the world. But so, too, did dramas on the war's home fronts: battles against colonial overlords, assaults on internal "enemies," massive labor migrations, endless columns of refugees. With an eye for detail and an eye on the big story, Fritzsche takes us from shipyards on San Francisco Bay to townships in Johannesburg to street corners in Calcutta to reveal the moral and existential drama of a people's war filled with promise and terror." -- Provided by publisher

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

"In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and 'the neighborhood homosexual,' Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget." -- Publisher's description

Tom's
Crossing

"While folks still like to focus on the crimes that shocked the small city of Orvop, Utah, back in the fall of 1982, not to mention the trials that followed, far more remember the adventure that took place beyond municipal lines. For sure no one expected the dead to rise, but they did. No one expected the mountain to fall either, but it did. No one expected an act of courage so great, and likewise so appalling, that it still staggers the heart and mind of anyone who knows anything about the Katanogos massif, to say nothing of Pillars Meadow. As one Orvop high school teacher described that extraordinary feat just days before she died, Fer sure no one expected Kalin March to look Old Porch in the eye and tell him: You get what you deserve when you ride with cowards." -- Publisher annotation

Three or More Is a Riot

"From the moment that Trayvon Martin's senseless murder initiated the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, America has been convulsed by new social movements--around guns, gender violence, sexual harrassment, race, policing, and on and on--and an equally powerful backlash that abetted the rise of the MAGA movement. In this punchy, powerful collection of dispatches, mostly published in The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb pulls the signal from the noise of this chaotic era. Cobb's work as a reporter takes readers to the front lines of sometimes violent conflict, and he uses his gifts as a critic and historian tocrack open the meaning of it all. Through a stunning mélange of narrative journalism, criticism, and penetrating profiles, Cobb's writing captures the crises, characters, movements, and art of an era--and helps readers understand what might be coming next. Cobb has added new material to this collection--retrospective pieces that bring these stories up-to-date and tie them together, shaping these powerfulshort dispatches into a cohesive, epic narrative of one of the most consequential periods in recent American history." -- Provided by publisher

The Silver Book

"It is September 1974. Two men meet in Venice. One is a young English artist, in panicked flight from London. The other is Danilo Donati, the magician of Italian cinema, the designer responsible for realizing the spectacular visions of Fellini and Pasolini. Donati is in Venice to produce sketches for Fellini's Casanova. A young apprentice is just what he needs. He sweeps Nicholas to Rome and introduces him to the looking-glass world of Cinecittà, the studio where Casanova's Venice will be ingeniously assembled. In the spring, the lovers move together to the set of Salò, Pasolini's horrifying fable of fascism. But Nicholas has a secret, and in this world of constant illusion, his real nature passes unseen. Amid the rising tensions of Italy's Years of Lead, he acts as an accelerant, setting in motion a tragedy he doesn't intend." -- from book flap

Selected Letters of John Updike

"The arc of literary giant John Updike's life emerges in these luminous daily letters to family, friends, editors, and lovers--a remarkable outpouring over six decades, from his earliest consciousness as a writer to his final days. As James Schiff writes in the introduction to this volume, of the writer who would eventually 'express himself in written form as copiously and as elegantly as any American writer' before him, 'Updike needed to write the way the rest of us need to breathe or eat.' With his stunning rhetorical gifts--enabling him to thrive in both short fiction and the novel, criticism as well as poetry--Updike was also a consummate letter writer. When barely a teenager, he began submitting poems and cartoons to national magazines and soliciting famous cartoonists, with flattering requests, for a drawing. His letter writing only increased when he left the family farm in Pennsylvania for Harvard, where he composed more than 150 witty, substantive letters to his parents. The summer after he graduated, The New Yorker began accepting his work, and his exchanges with editors, publishers, and writers would stretch into a correspondence that, Schiff notes, 'figures not as an adjunct to but rather an integral part of his astonishing literary output.' The intimacy and lucidity of these letters brings to the fore all manner of subjects and situations, notably the ardent feelings for his first love and wife, Mary, and later the heartbreaking but honestly accounted breakup of their marriage; the uncensored passion for other women, including his Ipswich neighbor, Martha, who became his second wife; the concern for his children's path to adulthood; and the conversations with many literary peers, from Joyce Carol Oates to Philip Roth, as well as his Knopf and New Yorker editors, critics, translators, and others in the lit business. Filled with comic observations, opinions, and personal news, told in the fluid first-person voice of the writer himself, these missives, taken together, create a page-turning 'life in letters' like no other." -- Publisher's description

Rewiring Democracy

"AI will transform every aspect of our democracy, from citizenship to the courts, and it's up to us to ensure that this transformation unfolds in a fair and beneficial way."-- Provided by publisher

Motherland

"Acclaimed journalist Julia Ioffe tells the story of modern Russia through the history of its women, from revolution to utopia to autocracy. In 1990, seven-year-old Julia Ioffe and her family fled the Soviet Union. Nearly twenty years later, Ioffe returned to Moscow -- only to discover just how much Russian society had changed while she had been living in America. The Soviet women she had known growing up -- doctors, engineers, scientists -- seemed to have been replaced by women desperate to marry rich and become stay-at-home moms. How had Russia gone from portraying itself as the vanguard of world feminism to becoming a bastion of conservative Christian values? In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin's lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, Ioffe chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and documents how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate -- and how that failure paved the way for the revanche of Vladimir Putin. Part memoir, part journalistic exploration, part history, Motherland paints a portrait of modern Russia through the women who shaped it. With deep emotion, Ioffe reveals what it means to live through the cataclysms of revolution, war, idealism, and heartbreak -- and how the story of Russia today is inextricably tied to the sacrifices of its women." -- Jacket flap

Minor Black Figures

"A perceptive novel about a gay Black painter navigating the worlds of art, desire, and creativity."-- Provided by publisher

The Librarians

"Murder disrupts the peaceful, predictable daily routine of life for four quirky librarians who must protect their life-altering secrets in the first contemporary mystery from USA Today bestselling author Sherry Thomas. Sometimes a workplace isn't just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge ... In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don't always realize that their librarians are human, too. Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won't be enough anymore. When two patrons turn up dead after the library's inaugural murder mystery-themed game night, the librarians' quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library--and themselves--is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together ... All in a day's work."-- Provided by publisher

The Rose Field

Lyra and Malcom's quests converge as they race toward the mysterious red building in the desert of Karamakan said to hold the secret of Dust where they encounter an unforeseen threat that will change everything.

Black Arms to Hold You up

"From the Ignatz and Eisner Award-winning cartoonist Ben Passmore comes a whirlwind graphic history of Black life, taken by force. It's the summer of 2020, and downtown Philly is up in flames. 'You're not out in the streets with everyone else?' Ronnie asks his ambivalent son, Ben, shambling in with arms full of used books: the works of Malcom X, Robert F. Williams, Assata and Sanyika Shakur, among others. 'Black liberation is your fight, too.' So begins Black Arms to Hold You Up, a boisterous, darkly funny, and sobering march through Black militant history by political cartoonist Ben Passmore. From Robert Charles's shootout with the police in 1900, to the Black Power movement in the 1960s, to the Los Angeles and George Floyd uprisings of the 1990s and the aughts, readers will tumble through more than a century of armed resistance against the racist state alongside Ben--and meet firsthand the mothers and fathers of the movement, whose stories were as tragic as they were heroic. What, after so many decades lost to state violence, is there left to fight for? Deeply researched, vibrantly drawn, and bracingly introspective, Black Arms to Hold You Up dares to find the answer." -- Provided by publisher

Wreck

"The acclaimed bestselling author of Sandwich is back with a wonderful novel, full of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn't go as planned. If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry--and relate.) Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband Nick and their daughter Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky's widowed father, has moved in. It all couldn't be more ridiculously normal . . . until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them--and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won't affect them at all. With her signature wit and wisdom, Catherine Newman explores the hidden rules of family, the heavy weight of uncertainty, and the gnarly fact that people--no matter how much you love them--are not always exactly who you want them to be."-- Provided by publisher

The Uncool

"The long-awaited memoir by Cameron Crowe--one of America's most iconic journalists and filmmakers--revealing his formative years in rock and roll and bringing to life stories that shaped a generation, in the bestselling tradition of Patti Smith's Just Kids with a dash of Moss Hart's Act One. The Uncool is a ... dispatch from a lost world, the real-life events that became Almost Famous, and a coming-of-age journey filled with characters you won't soon forget."-- Provided by publisher

Ready for My Closeup

"Great films are born of great collaborations, and Sunset Boulevard represents one of the most extraordinary confluences of cinematic talent in film history, but its production was surprisingly fraught, filled with unexpected twists. Why was William Holden, who had never caught fire as a leading man, hired to play Joe Gillis after the fastest rising star in the business dropped out at the last minute? After Mae West and Mary Pickford turned down the now iconic role of Norma Desmond, how did Billy Wilder convince Gloria Swanson, who had long been absent from Hollywood at this point, to leave her low paying job as a TV talk show host to join the cast? From the writers' room during Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's final collaboration to the moment when the film won three Academy Awards, scholar and former Rolling Stone staffer David M. Lubin takes readers on a fascinating journey through film history that proves, once and for all, why Sunset Boulevard is one of the most iconic films in cinematic history. By exploring the history of Sunset Boulevard in time for the movie's 75th anniversary, from its inception to its making to its present-day legacy, Ready for My Closeup breathes life into a beloved masterpiece of American cinema, not only marking its influential place in film history, but also proving how prescient it really was in terms of the human costs of relentless technological change and our obsessive quest for fame, youth, and immortality." -- Provided by publisher

Only God Can Judge Me

"Scrutinized in life, mythologized in death, Tupac Shakur remains a subject of immense cultural significance and speculation nearly thirty years after his murder. Despite a multitude of books, documentaries, and even a feature film, much about Tupac's story remains shrouded and misunderstood. Like many icons who died tragically young, Tupac the man has long been obscured--his edges sanded down, his complexity numbed--by the competing agendas that surround his legacy. In Only God Can Judge Me, accomplished biographer and cultural historian Jeff Pearlman tackles his most nuanced subject, telling the definitive story of Tupac Shakur in unprecedented depth. In this authoritative look at Tupac's life, Pearlman skillfully recreates West Coast hip hop in all its glory, going inside Death Row Records and on the sets of movies like Juice and Poetic Justice to offer the most clear-eyed rendering to date of the man who still casts a shadow over modern hip hop. But more than just a biography of a complicated figure, In Only God Can Judge Me also captures the time and place in which Tupac rose, a singular moment in music history when West Coast hip hop became a phenomenon and transformed popular music. Featuring nearly seven hundred original interviews and never-before-published details from every corner of Tupac's life, the result offers a truly singular portrait of one of modern pop culture's most towering figures. Guided by the voices of those who knew and lived life alongside him, In Only God Can Judge Me captures the layers of a man who, even thirty years after his death, remains as elusive as ever" -- Provided by publisher

The Eternal Forest

"In the tradition of The Yellow House and Half Broke Horses, a memoir of the Cuban diaspora that follows one family's exile from the island, through a lyrical exploration of memory, cultural mythology, and the history of Cuban-American relations. History is undeniably dominated by its men, but the stories Elena Sheppard was brought up on were almost always about Cuba's women--everyday women, whose names would be forgotten and buried along with their bones unless someone took the effort to remember them. Cifuentes, Cuba, in the 1950s was nearly idyllic-at least that's how Elena's grandparents, Rosita and Gustavo Delgado, remember the Eden they left. When Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, Gustavo was placed on a list of political undesirables, and by the end of 1960, the couple and their two daughters had fled to Florida, with nothing more than five dollars, and a suitcase each. The Delgados were certain they would return to Cifuentes within a few months, after Castro's reign had run its course. But they never went back, and a piece of each of their identities became frozen in that moment. In 1987, Elena was the first in Gustavo and Rosita's family to be born in the United States, but through the memories that lived on in her grandmother's mind, Cuba became the foundation of her childhood. Elena takes us inside these stories, and as we travel back and forth across the narrow Florida Straits that separate Miami and Havana, we also weave between past and present, to discover family secrets that are on the brink of being lost to time. In lyrical yet unflinching prose, The Eternal Forest follows one family's exile from their homeland and in so doing, it tells the larger political story of the Cuban Revolution and its diaspora. Through a spellbinding blend of cultural myth, historical texts, and personal narrative, The Eternal Forest seeks to understand the nature of inheritance, how trauma and memory are passed down through generations, and what it means to yearn for an island you can never fully know." -- Provided by publisher

Crick

"What are the moments that make a life? In Francis Crick's, the decisive moment came in 1951, when he first met James Watson. Their ensuing discovery of the structure of DNA made Crick world-famous. But neither that chance meeting nor that discovery made Crick who he was. As Matthew Cobb shows in Crick, it is another chance encounter, with a line from the writing of Beat poet Michael McClure, that reveals Crick's character: 'this is the the powerful knowledge,' it shouted. Crick, having read it, would keep it with him for the rest of his life, a token of his desire to solve the riddles of existence. John Keats once accused scientists of merely wanting to 'unweave the rainbow,' but it was an irrepressible, Romantic urge to wonder that defined Crick, as much as a desire to find out the basis of life in DNA and the workings of our minds. For the first time ever, Cobb presents the full portrait of Crick, a scientist and a man: his triumphs and failings, insights and oversights. Crick set out to find the powerful knowledge. Almost miraculously, he did." -- Dust jacket flap

All Consuming

"Over the past seventy-five years, food has gone from a fact of life to national pastime; something to be thought about -- and talked about--24/7. Our tastes have been radically refashioned, painstakingly engineered in the depths of food factories, and hacked by craveable Instagram recipes. In this startling original, deeply irreverent cultural history, Ruby Tandoh traces that transformation, exposing how cult cookbooks, bad TV, visionary restaurants, and now social media have all wildly overhauled our appetites. All Consuming is a deep dive into the social, economic, cultural, legislative, and demographic forces that have reshaped our world--and made us all foodies."-- Dust jacket flap

The Glass Eel

"Caterpillar Island, off the coast of Maine, hides a dark underworld of baby eel smuggling, fast cash, and violent trade under its idyllic surface. Jeanette King, a hard-working divorcée, is pulled into this dangerous scene when her ex-husband becomes entangled in the elver trade. With help from a local cop and an Indigenous activist, she navigates a web of crime, community, and environmental peril." -- Adapted from Goodreads