ODY New Books Collection

The Business of Transition

"The Business of Transition examines how the cosmopolitan bourgeoisie of the Eastern Mediterranean navigated the transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century. In this social and cultural history, Paris Papamichos Chronakis shows how the Jewish and Greek merchants of Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki) skillfully managed the tumultuous shift from Ottoman to Greek rule amidst revolution and war, rising ethnic tensions, and heightened class conflict. Bringing their once powerful voices back into the historical narrative, he traces their entangled trajectories as businessmen, community members, and civic leaders to illustrate how the self-reinvention of a Jewish-led bourgeoisie made a city Greek. Papamichos Chronakis draws on previously untapped local archival material to weave a rich narrative of individual portraits, introducing us to revered philanthropists and committed patriots as well as vilified profiteers and victimized Salonicans. Offering a kaleidoscopic view of a city in transition, this book reveals how the collapse of empire shook all the constitutive elements of Jewish and Greek identities, and how Jews and Greeks reinvented themselves amidst these larger political and economic disruptions."-- Provided by publisher

Beyond Belief

"The remarkable story of the global movement championing the idea that evidence, not opinions, should guide our decisions. Today, more and more people around the globe are using scientific evidence to figure out what works--in health, government and business as well as conservation, schools and parenting. This wasn't always the case. This book tells the story of the evidence revolution--a worldwide movement that promotes evidence-based thinking--and shows how it can help us all, especially in an age of alternative facts. For many years, most medical advice was based on doctors' opinions and conventional wisdom, not solid science. Helen Pearson describes how evidence-based medicine swept the world in the 1990s--becoming the predominant form of medicine practiced today--and how the idea that evidence should guide decisions is quietly transforming a host of other fields as well. Do police patrols reduce crime? Do performance appraisals boost job performance? Do welfare programs help the poor? Do smaller classes aid learning? Do smartphones harm teenagers? At a time when science is under attack and questionable claims run rampant, Pearson underscores the importance of evidence in all facets of our lives, empowering each of us to sift fact from falsehood and misinformation from the truth. Essential reading for the rational-minded, Beyond Belief is an engaging portrait of the mavericks, visionaries and rebels who share the simple belief that decisions based on evidence make the world a better place." -- Amazon website

Bad Friend

"A smart and thought-provoking memoir, history, and cultural critique about the turmoil and complexity of female friendship. Our culture today is inundated with narratives about the strength of female friendship, whether through images of girl power, BFFs, or work wives. Yet cultural historian Tiffany Watt Smith has always found her own life much messier. She has had dramatic friend breakups, friendships that felt like too much or not enough, friendships that drifted into silence, and friendships built on convenience rather than a meeting of minds. And there are older cultural scripts to contend with: the competitive rival, the jealous backstabber, the underminer, the fair-weather friend. We have all been bad friends. It's impossible to be a perfect one; as Watt Smith points out, women's friendships have long been magnified, scrutinized, praised, and admonished, creating a legacy of impossible ideals. In Bad Friend, Watt Smith reflects on her own experience and thoroughly mines the rich cultural history of female friendship to look for a new paradigm that might encompass the struggles along with the joy."-- Provided by publisher

Axe in Blossom

"The Pulitzer Prize winner's final written work: poems of penetrating acceptance and humor, whose soul-sweeping gaze encompasses his own autobiography and the broken world he still finds beautiful and worthy of our gratitude." --Dust jacket flap

The Nord Stream Conspiracy

"A riveting exposé of the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, the largest act of sabotage in modern history, told through unprecedented access and deep investigative reporting - part geopolitical thriller, part true-crime detective story, part gritty war chronicle. In September 2022, Scandinavian seismologists detected what seemed to be an undersea earthquake near the Danish Island of Bornholm. Instead, several powerful explosions had destroyed Nord Stream, the $20 billion pipeline system that transported cheap Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. The mysterious blasts shifted global geopolitics, disrupted European economies, and triggered a manhunt that strained relations within the NATO alliance. Drawing on years of firsthand reporting, award-winning Wall Street Journal correspondent Bojan Pancevski presents the definitive, behind-the-scenes account of this audacious operation. He secured exclusive access to the German investigators and their political overseers, as well as the Ukrainian operatives who executed the attack-a team of intelligence officers, military personnel, and civilian divers. The saboteurs, operating on a shoestring budget, used a small, rented yacht with a seven-member crew, and the plot also involved a failed attack on another key Russian pipeline in the Black Sea. Moreover, according to Pancevski's sources, the mission was authorized at the highest levels of Ukraine's leadership: President Volodymyr Zelensky and then commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, at least initially, approved the mission. The Nord Stream Conspiracy addresses the two leading theories about who was responsible, Russia or the U.S., and explains how these narratives developed, including the popular U.S. theory involving the C.I.A (which knew about the plot) endorsed by prominent political and media figures. This gripping account exposes the human stories and moral complexities behind one of the most remarkable geopolitical mysteries of our time, which redefined modern warfare." -- Provided by publisher

They All Fall in Love at the End

"It's the fall of 2024, and twenty-four-year-old Cat St. Clair isn't asking for too much: all she wants is three boyfriends, to write her little novels, and to survive another chaotic presidential election. She's in an open relationship with her college sweetheart Jay, but nonmonogamy isn't just a hot trend she's trying. It's her sliver of freedom in a world eager to wrestle it from her for being a Black woman going after what she wants with reckless abandon. While political tensions roil the campus where Cat is slowly earning her creative writing degree, she finds herself drawn to Jay's best friend, Tristan, who's smart, super hot, and... in a monogamous relationship. And then she meets Tristan's girlfriend, Nia, a captivating art student with her own gravitational pull. Friends and family urge her to just be happy with Jay, but Cat is determined to have it all--or blow up her life trying. As she falls for all the wrong people, racking up lies, betrayals, and terrible drafts of her novel, she tries to write her way to a happy ending. But in art, politics, and love, true liberation may take more than rewriting the old scripts. It may mean inventing something entirely new." -- Dust jacket

When the Forest Breathes

"The trailblazing scientist who pioneered the concept of sophisticated communication between trees returns with a book that, drawing on rigorous science and neglected indigenous wisdom, places nature's own cycles of renewal at the center of a powerful vision for the future of our forests. In 'When the Forest Breathes,' Simard uncovers the ways that nature's deep-rooted cycles of renewal can ensure the longevity of threatened ecosystems. Raised in a family of loggers committed to sensible forest stewardship, Simard reveals that the forest is a symphony of finely honed cycles of regeneration--from mushrooms breaking down logs to dying elder trees passing their genetic knowledge to younger ones--that hold the key to protecting our forests from the threats of logging and climate change. Leading one of the most ambitious climate research initiatives ever undertaken, Simard examines how human interventions--particularly loggers' destruction of the overstory's mother trees--affect new growth in her native British Columbia. Working closely with local Indigenous communities, whose models of responsible forestry have been largely dismissed, she unearths groundbreaking findings that, if implemented, could ensure the survival of these ecosystems for generations to come. As she considers how older living things facilitate the conditions for new growth to flourish, Simard faces parallel rhythms of loss and regeneration in her own life, watching her two daughters grow into young women and savoring her final days with her ailing mother. Animated by wonder and hope for our planet's endangered places and the intricate practices of caretaking that have sustained them for millennia, When the Forest Breathes is a vital reminder of all the natural world has to teach us about adaptability, resilience, and community." -- Provided by publisher

Villa Coco

"An aspiring archivist determined to begin a 'serious' life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa's extensive collection of art and antiques--although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose. Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco's great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it's too late."-- Provided by publisher

Take Me with You

College professor Jesse del Ruth has been abandoned. Thirty years into their relationship, Jesse witnesses his husband Norman get out of bed late one night, walk into their Joshua Tree backyard, step into a strange beam of light and ... disappear. How could Norman desert him after a lifetime together? Where did he go? And, most confoundingly ... will he ever return? Jesse knew they were longing for something, both feeling stuck. But had Norman been so stuck that his only option was to leave Jesse behind? As Jesse struggles to understand Norman's disappearance, he tries to piece together his new reality. Is he expected to wait patiently for a partner who may never come back? Or is this an opportunity for reinvention? When Norman's sister Lally lands on Jesse's doorstep with an urgent request, Norman's absence becomes even more profound. Add to Jesse's grief and confusion a conspiracy-theorist neighbor, a strange man following him, and suspicions that he may have had a hand in Norman's disappearance, and Jesse starts to crack under the pressure. With his husband missing and the world closing in, all eyes are on Jesse. Before he can understand how Norman could leave it all behind, Jesse must confront what it means to stay.

Stolen Revolution

"A deeply moving portrait of the lives of Iranians across five decades, from the Iranian Revolution to the inspiring Woman Life Freedom protests, tracing the promise of the revolution, its betrayal by forces of autocracy, and a people's undying spirit of resistance. The 1979 revolution in Iran swept aside a monarchy, fueled by a people's dreams of social justice and political freedom. But the movement's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, and his acolytes instead built a system that served their narrow faction and worsened beyond imagination the brutality and corruption that had existed under the Shah. Stolen Revolution follows six Iranians who, together, have lived the arc of modern Iranian history: -Mehdi Karroubi, a devotee of Khomeini, rose to the heights of power before being cast out of the inner circle. He spurred the revolution's first calls for reform. -Hila Sedighi, a young activist, gave voice through her poetry to her peers' hopes during the reform years and ultimately voiced their shattered dreams. -Said Rahmani, a successful global tech entrepreneur, returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself. -Amir Moghadam, an ambitious government bureaucrat, witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth. -Rozhin Yousefzade and Kosar Eftekhari, both born in the 1990s, escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran where they joined a mass movement in confrontation with a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman Life Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price. Through a vivid and harrowing narrative, Stolen Revolution offers a visceral understanding of contemporary Iran, of life in a modern autocracy, and of the Iranian people's undying fight for a better future."-- Provided by publisher

Score

"You never forget your first love. Isn't that what they say? Verity Hill knows this truth intimately. She didn't simply miss Wright 'Monk' Bellamy when they parted ways in college. She's haunted by his touch. Every kiss, any lover since-it's a shadow of what they had. Time heals all wounds. Isn't that what they say? Monk doesn't believe that for a second. He wasn't simply betrayed when he and Verity split. He was devastated, with parts of him left behind in the ruins of all that was destroyed. More than a decade after their disastrous breakup, Verity and Monk must work together on the set of an epic Harlem Renaissance biopic. With Monk, now a world-class musician, creating the score, and Verity, an award-winning screenwriter, penning the script, there's Oscar buzz before shooting even begins. This once-in-a-lifetime project could catapult them both to new heights, but can they put the past behind them for the sake of the film...for the sake of something more?" -- Provided by publisher

The Rolling Stones

All great music is a threat. What is there left to say about The Rolling Stones? A hell of a lot, it turns out. Bob Spitz has brought his indefatigable energy and five decades of experiences in the fields and hollows of rock 'n' roll to bear on his five-year journey to reexamine one of popular music's greatest stories. There are myriad revisions to the conventional narrative that underscore just how much the band has been in control of their story, up to now--small example: No, Muddy Waters was not mopping the floors at Chess Records when the Stones showed up. But in a larger sense, as with the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Spitz's greatest gift is for the big picture. He knows where the magic is, and why it is. He is as clear-eyed a connoisseur of the show business, the spectacle and the collateral damage of this whirlwind as anyone alive, and that lucid gaze pierces a lot of encrusted myth. But the ultimate goal is to connect with a creative force whose power shows no signs of fading, over sixty years on. At its heart the story is about two boys, Mick and Keith, and their unique, fraught, alchemical bond, often tested, never sundered. The Glimmer Twins and the bandmates, like Charlie Watts, who found their groove in relation to this double star, made the trip intact, while those who struggled, like Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, were chewed up and spit out. This is a story with many dark corners, including a surprising number of deaths. But whether Jagger and Richards sold their souls to the devil at the crossroads for blues greatness or just squeezed their heroes for every drop of inspiration, in the end their connection to their music and to each other put them in a category of one, where they very much remain. -- From dust jacket

Project Maven

"The dramatic story of the secretive decade-long Pentagon campaign to deliver America into the age of AI warfare."-- Publisher

Presence

"A vibrant history of women's bodies, expertise, and work." -- Provided by publisher

The Perfect Moment

"It's 1988, the final year of the Reagan presidency, and the curtain is closing on the Cold War. In the absence of external adversaries, the American public is on the precipice of war with itself. The religious right, newly ascendant and emboldened, is determined to seize control of America's future. And the first battles will be fought over, of all things, contemporary art. In The Perfect Moment, cultural historian Isaac Butler reexamines this pivotal, misunderstood American era. Archconservatives like Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson fixed their sights on artists including Andres Serrano, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, and Karen Finley, capitalizing on the provocative politics of their work to stir a nascent evangelical coalition into moral panic. It was at this moment, Butler argues, that the far right perfected the tactics it still uses today to whip its base into frenzy-from banning books and sanitizing American history, to spreading medical misinformation. All too relevant today, The Perfect Moment is an incisive and meticulously researched account of this crucial period and a stirring ode to the power of the creative spirit."-- Provided by publisher

A Pair of Aces

Assistant district attorney Eunice Carter, Manhattan's first Black female prosecutor, develops a strategy to prosecute organized crime boss Charles 'Lucky' Luciano by targeting his involvement in prostitution rather than his more visible criminal enterprises. Unable to build the case alone, she forms an uneasy alliance with brothel owner Polly Adler, whose workers have been endangered by Luciano's expanding control. Drawing on a network of women from sharply different social worlds, the two gather evidence against Luciano while risking retaliation from the criminal organization. Set in New York City, the novel centers on the collaboration that leads to a landmark organized crime trial.

On the Origin of Sex

"Let's talk about sex. Not boring, human sex, but the endlessly fascinating, varied, and complex forms of reproduction in the rest of the natural world. Biologist Lixing Sun has spent decades researching sexual reproduction and evolution using behavioral experiments, genetic testing, and mathematical and computer modeling. In On the Origin of Sex, he reveals the wild and weird world of how creatures reproduce. In slime molds, sex can involve dozens -- or even hundreds -- of mating types, or proto-sexes. Among certain algae, nearly every individual can mate with almost any other -- a veritable free-for-all. Meanwhile, whiptail lizards and California condors are just two among the many vertebrate species capable of parthenogenesis. Clownfish sequentially change from male to female, and bearded dragons can undergo temperature-dependent sex reversal, all of which challenge the notion that sex is binary and fixed in the natural world."-- Provided by publisher

Nerve Damage

"A riotous revenge novel about a woman's quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend-by stalking him herself."-- Provided by publisher

The Midnight Train

"When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop? No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there. The chance to re-live the moments that meant most. To see what kind of person you really were. For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice. Before he gave it all away. He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything . . . A magical, time-travelling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library."-- Provided by publisher

The Man Who Stole the Gods

"Amidst the chaos of Cambodia's brutal genocide, a new crime wave emerged -- one that would sweep across borders and entangle the world's most prestigious art institutions. Priceless treasures of the ancient Khmer Empire, the civilization that produced Angkor Wat, vanished from sacred temples, looted by smugglers and trafficked into the hands of elite collectors. At the center of it all was a man named Douglas Latchford. Known later as 'Dynamite Doug' for the ruthless methods used to extract statues from temple ruins, Latchford orchestrated one of history's most audacious cultural heists. From dusty Cambodian villages to the glittering auction houses of London and New York and institutions like the Met, he played a double game -- posing as an expert on Khmer art while secretly flooding the market with stolen antiquities. In The Man Who Stole the Gods, award-winning journalist Matthew Campbell unravels the gripping, stranger-than-fiction story of Latchford's criminal enterprise, and a global conspiracy of greed, corruption, and complicity -- one that involves some of the world's most powerful museums, collectors, and auction houses. A masterful blend of true crime, history, and investigative journalism, The Man Who Stole the Gods is the definitive account of one man's greed, an industry's complicity, and the fight to expose the truth and restore stolen treasures to their rightful home." -- Provided by publisher