ODY New Books Collection

Pariah

"Hal Knight is a famous, if deeply polarizing, figure in Hollywood and on Capitol Hill. After a disastrous #MeToo encounter, Knight resigns from his seat, quits social media, and disappears to a Caribbean island. Upon his arrival, however, he is approached by a group of mysterious strangers, whom he discovers are CIA agents hoping to penetrate Bolrovia -- a hostile, eastern European country. They want his help in doing so. Bolrovia's oligarch, Nikolai Horvatz, is a fan of Knight's movies, and the agents anticipate Knight will receive an invitation for an official visit imminently. Though Knight is skeptical about the mission, he realizes he has nothing more to lose and could-at last-do something truly meaningful with his life, whether or not anybody ever learns the truth about his hand in the matter. Reluctantly, he agrees to the job. Arriving in Bolrovia as President Horvatz's guest of honor, Knight is faced with his ultimate acting challenge. He brushes shoulders with Horvatz, Branko Sarič -- the President's ruthless head of state security-shadowy figures in their orbit, and another group of Americans whose motivations are unclear. The only people in his corner are a trio of agents led by Lauren Witt, who has her own troubles in the agency and despises Knight. What begins as an assignment to keep his eyes and ears open quickly turns into a life or death mission."-- Provided by publisher

Oddbody

Striking, visceral, and brutally honest, Rose Keating's Oddbody is a captivating short story collection that delves into the weirdness of bodies and of existence itself through the voices of social outsiders and outcasts. In her debut collection, Rose Keating takes you on a bold journey through the intricacies of sex, shame, and womanhood. With ten enchanting short stories, she crafts an emotional masterpiece that challenges us to reflect on the movement and needs of our bodies. Strange yet utterly mesmerizing, Oddbody is a provocative exploration that feels both surprising and sincerely authentic. In "Oddbody," a woman finds herself navigating a codependent relationship with a ghost, while "Squirm" portrays a daughter tending to her father as he devours himself from the inside out. "Pineapple" introduces us to a woman who opts to have feather wings surgically attached to her back. In "Eggshells," a waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift. Each narrative in this collection is immersive, bizarre, and deeply empathetic, shining a light on women who dare to defy societal norms and invite you to question the conventions and milestones that determine success

A New New Me

"A brilliant, playful new novel about identity and personality, from master storyteller Helen Oyeyemi. What if you had to share your body and life with six different versions of yourself? Kinga-Alojzia lives alone in Prague, but she's never lonely. A different personality takes up residence in her mind each day of the week. Every evening, that day's personality leaves written notes for the next day's self about what transpired. This all works quite well until the day that Kinga, who is Polish, becomes a Czech citizen. She wants to be a model member of her adopted country, but one of her selves seems to be plotting a takeover, scheming to rule them all. A captivating exploration of identity and multiplicity, A NEW NEW ME combines Helen Oyeyemi's crackling, exuberant prose with deep existential questions: What happens when your identities are at war with each other? How many versions of oneself can one self contain?"-- Provided by publisher

The Melting Point

"This book is a first-person account of my seven years serving at the pinnacle of the United States military. As a four-star officer, I commanded United States Central Command during the most significant three years in the history of the modern Middle East."-- Provided by publisher

The Library at Hellebore

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that's what Alessa Li is told when she's kidnapped and forcibly enrolled. But there's more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa's class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school's library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone. Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?

Iran's
Grand Strategy

Two pervasive fears-of external aggression and internal dissolution-have dominated political discourse and state action in Iran for many decades, and arguably for centuries. This book closely examines these fears, how they've shaped political trends in Iran, and specifically how they have undergirded the conduct of state actors during both the regime of the Shah (the Pahlavi monarchy) of the twentieth century and the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. Drawing on archival sources in the West and in Iran, as well as interviews with key Iranian decision-makers both past and present, Vali Nasr traces this thread of national security through key modern historical episodes in Iran. By viewing modern Iranian history through this lens, Nasr argues that decrying the current Iranian regime as a theocracy is a tired rhetorical move--and inaccurate as an explanation for how it conducts itself in the world. Today's Islamic Republic functions as a modern legal-rational nation-state. It is one that has evolved around a distinct and deeply held view of national interest and national security, rooted in both recent and not-so-recent history. Nasr's book will serve as a corrective to a deeply-rooted view in policy-making circles that the Iranian ruling elite's commitment to Islamic theocracy has driven the country's foreign policy since the time of the revolution. A revelatory account of Iran's grand strategy at home and on the world stage. Iran presents one of the most significant foreign policy challenges for America and the West, yet very little is known about what the country's goals really are. Vali Nasr examines Iran's political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today's Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world. Drawing on memoirs, oral histories, and original in-depth interviews with Iranian decision makers, Nasr brings to light facts and events in Iran's political history that have been overlooked until now. He traces the roots of Iran's strategic outlook to its experiences over the past four decades of war with Iraq in the 1980s and the subsequent American containment of Iran, invasion of Iraq in 2003, and posture toward Iran thereafter. Nasr reveals how these experiences have shaped a geopolitical outlook driven by pervasive fear of America and its plans for the Middle East. Challenging the notion that Iran's foreign policy simply reflects its revolutionary values or theocratic government, Iran's Grand Strategy provides invaluable new insights into what Iran wants and why, explaining the country's resistance to the United States, its nuclear ambitions, and its pursuit of influence and proxies across the Middle East.

Inner Space

"American and Russian astronauts are trapped together in the International Space Station as war breaks out in Ukraine and life support functions begin to fail in this action-packed debut technothriller that ripples with the tension and danger of Solaris and Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary." -- Provided by publisher

House of Beth

"After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is married to Eli, living in his house in the woods, homeschooling the kids, and getting to know her reserved neighbor, Joan. But Cassie's fresh start is less idyllic than she'd hoped. She grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by gory, graphic images. And she's afraid that she'll never measure up to Eli's late spouse, who was a committed homemaker and traditional wife. No matter what Cassie does, Beth's shadow still permeates every corner of their home. Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house's secrets. As she listens, the voice grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth's untimely death."-- Provided by publisher

Hothouse Bloom

"In the vein of Rachel Cusk, Han Kang, and Clarice Lispector, Hothouse Bloom follows a young woman who renounces her painting career and all her human relationships to become one with her late grandfather's apple orchard. Anna arrives at the orchard with the intention to abjure social life, deverbalize her experience, and adjust her consciousness to the rhythms of the trees. She succeeds, for a time, until the arrival of her old friend Jan, nomadic and lively and at work on a book about the painter Charles Burchfield. Alarmed by her isolation and declining health, he tries to get her painting again, while Anna is determined to show him the orchard as she sees it. As the harvest approaches, the outside world descends in the form of pickers, contractors, neighbors, and pomologists. Anna realizes that the only way back to her idyllic life is to turn a profit. It becomes an obsession, much like her former in the way it consumes her, the way an apple oxidizes, might rot. Hothouse Bloom is a millennial pastoral, both painterly and critical in its ideas about art, permaculture, subjectivity, and the natural world." -- Provided by publisher

Girl, 1983

Paris, a winter's night in 1983. She is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begins to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before."--Provided by publisher

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

"Some might call Lorelei Lee lucky. Others, names she would not even put in her diary. Life in New York is becoming routine, so when her wealthy companion Mr. Eisman suggests that "a girl with brains ought to do something else with them besides think," Lorelei is up to the challenge. Accompanied by her best friend Dorothy Shaw, Lorelei chronicles the sights and people of Europe in her diary in a consistent mix of hilarity and accidental wisdom-"Paris is divine" and "London is really nothing at all." Reliant on the good graces of the gentlemen around them to stay afloat as they await Eisman's arrival on the continent, Lorelei and Dorothy skirt unscathed and at times oblivious around scorned and greedy lovers, plots of Francophone thievery, and even murder charges."-- Provided by publisher

Florida Palms

"All they wanted was a summer job, a way to make a little cash. Three broke Florida boys, fresh out of high school and wild at heart, get hired by a moving company run by one of their fathers: a gruff, felonious old Hells Angels biker who has supposedly retired from the fast life. But when a stranger from the father's past rolls into town, the boys' small world gets flipped upside down. They discover that the moving company is a front for a criminal organization shipping a new designer drug up the East Coast. Enticed by larger pay checks and fueled by burgeoning drug habits, the young friends soon find themselves mixed up with rank opportunists, meth zombies, killer cops, and a panther-hunting hitman, each fighting it out for a shot at the Big Time. Will the young men find redemption, or will they end up like so many others, lying face down in the muck of the unforgiving swamps?"-- Provided by publisher

Flashout

"A thrill-seeking young woman joins a radical theater troupe in this taut, suspenseful novel of art, seduction, and the deadly limits of liberation. New York, 1972. A cloistered college student slips out of the dorms to attend a performance by a legendary experimental performance troupe. Within months, she has left campus life behind and joined the company, infatuated by its charismatic leader and his promises of absolute freedom. California, 1997. A theater teacher at an exclusive private school receives an unsettling letter. With her job at risk and her past clawing at her carefully constructed present, what will she do to protect the life she has made? Riveting and atmospheric, Flashout is a coruscating coming-of-age story and an immersive thriller exploring the enchantments and perils of art."-- Provided by publisher

The Diary of Lies

"In a post-COVID world, investigative reporter Shona Sandison is seeking meaning and the next big story; her reclusive contact inside the government has promised her something huge, but she has no idea what kind of danger she's in. Meanwhile, her old journalist friend Hector Stricken has taken on a position in communications for a new state agency, where he stumbles across a sinister, top-secret project codenamed Grendel. Finally, an aging former MI6 director now living in seclusion processes his grief for his murdered son and ponders revenge. Connecting these stories is a conspiracy rooted deep in the United Kingdom's most powerful institutions, a rot so deep that the only way to cure it may be to cut it out-or burn the whole thing down. Written in beautiful, immersive language and peopled with iconic characters grappling with issues far larger than themselves, Philip Miller's new mystery depicts the reality of the modern fight against state oppression."-- Provided by publisher

Departure 37

"On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: do not fly today. There are a few concerning elements to the calls. None of the mothers remember making them -- and some of the mothers are dead. While the nation's military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a sixteen-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home -- a place she loathes. Her father's dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn. She's about to get much more than that. Her new home is ground zero for a story that begins at a remote naval base in Indiana during the winter of 1962, when a physicist named Martin Hazelton discovered something extraordinary -- and deadly. All Hazelton wanted was time to seek an explanation, but pressure from both American and Russian actors forced him into a perilous race."-- Provided by publisher

Clint

"C-L-I-N-T. That single short, sharp syllable has stood as an emblem of American manhood and morality and sheer bloody-minded will, on-screen and off-screen, for more than sixty years. Whether he's facing down bad guys on a Western street (Old West or new, no matter), staring through the lens of a camera, or accepting one of his movies' thirteen Oscars (including two for Best Picture), he is as blunt, curt, and solid as his name, a star of the old-school stripe and one of the most accomplished directors of his time, a man of rock and iron and brute force: Clint. To read the story of Clint Eastwood is to understand nearly a century of American culture. No Hollywood figure has so completely and complexly stood inside the changing climates of post-World War II America. At age ninety-five, he has lived a tumultuous century and embodied much of his time and many of its contradictions. We picture Clint squinting through cigarillo smoke in A Fistful of Dollars or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; imposing rough justice at the point of a .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry; sowing vengeance in The Outlaw Josey Wales or Pale Rider or Unforgiven; grudgingly training a woman boxer in Million Dollar Baby; and standing up for his neighbors despite his racism in Gran Torino. Or we feel him present, powerfully, behind the camera, creating complex tales of violence, morality, and humanity, such as Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper. But his roles and his films, however well cast and convincing, are two-dimensional in comparison to his whole life. As Shawn Levy reveals in this masterful biography--the most complete portrait yet of Eastwood--the reality is richer, knottier, and more absorbing. Clint: The Man and the Movies is a saga of cunning, determination, and conquest, a story about a man ascending to the Hollywood pantheon while keeping one foot firmly planted outside its door."-- Provided by publisher

Angel Down

"The critically acclaimed author of the "crazily enjoyable" (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war. Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man's Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell. Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict."-- Provided by publisher

The Afghans

"From Soviet occupation to the rise of the Taliban, from the outbreak of the War on Terror to its disastrous fallout, The Afghans is an extraordinary journey told over the course of three lives. Since she was a girl, Jamila fought tirelessly for her education. At 25, strengthened by the Quran and supported by the flow of international aid that accompanied U.S. invasion, she set off on a campaign to lead Afghanistan to a better future. Meanwhile, teenager Bashir joined the Taliban, eager to kill infidels in a holy war he would one day lead. In their crosshairs, Ariana grew up with hopes of becoming a lawyer -- only to have them dashed in 2021 as the U.S. military pulled out and the Taliban retook Kabul, shuttered schools, and wiped the country clean of Western influence." -- Provided by publisher

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