ODY New Books Collection

Transcription

"The narrator of Ben Lerner's new novel has traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, where he is to conduct what will be the final published interview with Thomas, his ninety-year-old mentor and the father of his college friend Max. Thomas is a giant in the arts who seems to hail 'from the future and the past simultaneously' and who 'reenchants the air' when he speaks. But the narrator drops his smartphone in the hotel sink. He arrives at Thomas's house with no recording device, a fact he is mysteriously unable to confess. What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and an exploration of fathers and sons, male friendship and rivalry, and the challenges of parenting in a burning world." -- Provided by publisher

Spoiled Milk

"The untimely death of a student at a girls' boarding school turns out to be the first in a haunting series of escalating supernatural events. A thrilling gothic debut about teenage repression, queer desire, and the everyday horror of coming of age. In 1928, Emily Locke's final year at the isolated Briarley School for Girls is derailed when Violet, the school's brightest star, (and a cunning beauty for whom Emily would do anything), falls to her death on her eighteenth birthday. Emily and her buttoned-up rival Evelyn are, for once, in agreement: Violet's death was no accident. There's an obvious culprit, the French schoolmistress with whom Violet was getting a little too close--they need only to prove it. Desperate for answers, Emily and her classmates turn to spiritualism, hoping for a glimpse of wisdom from the great beyond. To their shock, Violet's spirit appears, choosing pious Evelyn as her unlikely medium. And Violet has a warning for them: the danger has just begun. Something deadly is infecting Briarley. It starts with rotten food and curdled milk but quickly grows more threatening. As the body count rises and the students race to save themselves, Emily must confront the fatal forces poisoning the school. Emily's fight for survival forces her to reevaluate everything she knows: about Violet, Evelyn, Briarley, and, ultimately, herself. Avery Curran channels the indelible ambiance and intrigue of the classic boarding school novel while turning the beloved genre on its head in this visceral, exuberant debut." -- Book jacket flap

The Secret History of French Cooking

"This deeply researched cultural and culinary history tells the story of a group of French chefs who, in the late 1960s and 70s revolutionized food culture, first at home and then, quickly, abroad, especially in the United States. The very idea of chef as creator can be traced back to these legends of la nouvelle cuisine: Paul Bocuse, Michel Guerard, and the Troisgros brothers." -- Provided by publisher

A Scandal in Königsberg

"As told by one of our greatest historians, the story of the scandal that took down two Lutheran preachers in the heart of nineteenth-century Prussia -- a chamber piece of cultish esotericism, pseudoscience, and political resistance that conjures up Europe at the end of the age of reason and presages our current age of misinformation. In 1835, Johannes Ebel and Georg Heinrich Diestel were tried for having started a cult. Worse: It was a cult that encouraged scandalous sexual behavior in women, including the daughters of prestigious Prussian families -- causing the deaths of two young women from sexual exhaustion. The trial would absorb and polarize the city of Königsberg for half a decade and ruin the lives and careers of its defendants, despite their eventual legal exoneration. The historical moment it encapsulates -- a Europe reeling from the triumph and horror of a new industrial, imperial era, struggling to decide which principles will reign in the aftermath of Enlightenment reason -- is a fable for our present time of political, social, and existential disquiet. The great Cambridge historian Christopher Clark -- known for The Sleepwalkers, his monumental, defining study of the causes of the First World War -- came across the files containing this story three decades ago; it has been swirling in his mind ever since. In gripping, narrative prose, Clark immerses us in a Königsberg scarred by the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, where Immanuel Kant had recently inaugurated the theory of consciousness that completely reshaped humanity's understanding of itself -- but where the distinction between reason and fanaticism was now up for grabs. A Scandal in Königsberg is a European history in exquisite miniature -- and a peerless lesson in the theological and philosophical debates that animated the Western world at one of its great moments of transformation. Rich and provocative, A Scandal in Königsberg articulates an unsettling antecedent for our most fiercely litigated contemporary questions of sexual identity, freedom of thought, and who gets to decide what constitutes the truth." -- Provided by publisher

Plastic Inc.

"Plastic is everywhere in our daily lives. But the companies that make it-petrochemical companies which are often subsidiaries of Big Oil like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical-seem to be hiding in plain sight. For all the vivid coverage of where plastic ends up, there is remarkably little discussion of where it comes from. Plastic, it turns out, is a financial lifeline for oil companies that are concerned about diminishing demand for oil and gas in the future, and these companies are doing everything they can to double and eventually triple plastic production by 2050. Award-winning journalist Beth Gardiner gives readers an up-close look at the plastic industry's relentless growth, its extraordinary profits, its toxic pollution and its hidden role in exacerbating climate change. Every chapter in Plastic Inc brings new revelations, including: how Big Oil invented the idea of recycling, even though they always knew that recycling plastic at scale would never work (and by doing so, they created the playbook that big tobacco and big pharma would later follow); how microplastics are becoming a health crisis; how oil companies have linked with political forces to fight against bans on single use plastic like plastic bags, even creating laws that ban bans; the major characters and personalities behind what amounts to a hidden corporate and political scandal perpetuated over decades. The stories in Plastic Inc will reframe for readers a problem many of us think we understand, but which has deeper roots and a more complicated future than we can have possibly imagined."-- Provided by publisher

The People Can Fly

"What does it mean to be deemed promising in an unjust world? Award-winning poet and MIT professor Dr. Joshua Bennett interrogates this question and offers a more expansive vision of giftedness in this striking, original work. What does promise cost in America? Especially when that promise is seen as grounds to separate us from the communities we cherish, and framed as the key to success, salvation, survival? In The People Can Fly, Dr. Joshua Bennett explores the complex position of Black prodigies in a society that has, all too often, defined blackness as absence, as a lack of inner life. Through this hybrid work of memoir and cultural history, Dr. Bennett shares how his own academic journey reflected the ebb and flow of being seen as both promising and as a problem. He turns to the childhood archives of Malcolm X, Stevie Wonder, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, and others to further explore this theme: highlighting the role of cultural institutions, and loving communities, in shaping the lives of leading lights within African American culture. What's more, Dr. Bennett clarifies how these spaces--these mentors, teachers, friends, and kin--helped defend young people from a world that sought to exclude them from its vision of promise and possibility."-- Front book flap

The Oracle's
Daughter

"On a cool fall night in 1999, twenty-six-year-old Sarah Green crept out of her house, retrieved a backpack from its hiding place, and ran for her life. She was escaping not just the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a paramilitary religious cult operating out of the New Mexico desert, but also the punishments and cruelty of the cult's leader - her mother, Deborah. In The Oracle's Daughter, Harrison Hill traces the fascinating beginnings and violent end of ACMTC, from its early days as an outgrowth of the 1960s counterculture to its descent into conspiracy-fueled abuse. This is the story of three women - Deborah, the group's founder and self-proclaimed oracle; Maura, one of its first members; and Sarah, Deborah's daughter - bound together by a punitive, baroque set of radical beliefs and practices, including exorcism, kidnapping, and the horrific mistreatment of those who fell out of the leaders' favor. With a dramatic, deeply researched narrative tracing the strange twists and turns of the country's religious development, The Oracle's Daughter illuminates the porous boundary between the fringe and the mainstream - and shows how much more vulnerable we are to extremism than we might like to think." -- Provided by publisher

Mule Boy

"On New Year's Day, 1929, Ondro Prach, the thirteen-year-old son of Slovak immigrants in Pennsylvania coal country, begins a new job as mule boy. He knows the danger-his father died in the mines-but he is proud of his position handling the animal that hauls cartloads of coal from shafts deep within the earth to the surface. After Ondro earns the trust of the miners and the mule in his charge, the room the men are working collapses and their fate is sealed. From that moment onward, Ondro carries the hard memory of that day, a burden that leads to addiction and imprisonment, costing him his family. But, years later, when the miners' loved ones come searching for answers, he finds the strength to share what the men spoke of and prayed for in the pitch black. Told in incantatory prose set to the rhythm of human breath, this sublime novel turns the memento mori into a meditation not only on death but on what it takes to tunnel through darkness and live."-- Provided by publisher

The Meaning of Your Life

"What is the meaning of your life? If you struggle to discern life's meaning, you're not alone. Millions today describe a growing sense of emptiness, a lack of purpose and significance. And there's a reason: Rapid cultural, economic, and technological changes have rewired our brains, reducing our ability to perceive depth and purpose. In The Meaning of Your Life, social scientist Arthur C. Brooks shows you how to push back against these changes and find the meaning you need to live a happy, fulfilling life. Relying on cutting-edge science, he offers practical, evidence-based strategies for breaking free of the powerful trends and personal habits that dull your focus on the why of your life. Drawing on the great philosophers and the world's faith traditions, Brooks argues that everyone can -- and must -- approach life's most important and mysterious questions and provides a blueprint that will help even the most skeptical person find a life of spiritual transcendence, passionate love, and true calling. 'What is the meaning of my life?' is not an unanswerable question, but rather the start of a pilgrimage into unexplored corners of your consciousness. The Meaning of Your Life is your handbook for this journey." -- Book jacket flap

The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution

"A provocative new history of America's Constitution and an urgent call to action for a nation confronted by challenges its founders could never have imagined. The American Revolution occurred at a time when Britain's constitutional order failed to adapt to the extraordinary growth of its colonies. The framers designed an American constitution to succeed where Britain's had faltered, planning for continuous population and territorial expansion that would eventually cross the continent. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, it was already ill-suited for an increasingly urban, industrialized society, and the transformations of the twentieth century have pushed it to a breaking point. This book charts the history and aims of the American Constitution from its origins in an agrarian past to the grave crisis we face today. Mark Peterson traces the American constitutional tradition to the control of land in medieval England, showing how the founders incorporated the aspirations of Magna Carta with the administrative principles of the Domesday Book, a meticulous survey and valuation of landed property commissioned by William the Conqueror. This framework encouraged the growth of democratic self-government in a young nation. It also institutionalized the colonization of territory and the expulsion of Indigenous peoples, establishing a legal blueprint for transforming tribal lands into revenue-yielding real estate for settlers. Peterson's riveting narrative paints an arresting picture of a dynamic republic whose frame of government has changed enormously to meet the challenges of the modern age but whose written constitution has changed very little. Marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution reveals how this widening disconnect threatens the very existence of our democracy. It calls for a constitution that sustains the ideals developed over the past thousand years while meeting the challenges of the future."-- Provided by vendor

Luminous Bodies

"In the vein of Georgia (Dawn Tripp) and Matrix (Lauren Groff), the narrative follows Marie from girlhood in Poland to the battlefields of World War I, focusing on her marriage, widowhood, and love affair with physicist Paul Langevin--after which she was ostracized from society and the scientific community. Haunted by self-doubt, she turned to Hertha Ayrton, the scientist and suffragist who drew her back from the brink of suicide. How did Curie endure all this, and still achieve so much? What sustained her rich emotional, sexual, and intellectual life--and what were the costs? Jersild explores these questions in this radiant novel." -- Amazon

In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man

A memoir by Tom Junod examining his relationship with his father and the lasting impact of family dynamics on identity and masculinity. The narrative recounts the author's efforts to understand his father's life, including personal relationships and hidden aspects of his past, while reflecting on themes of memory, family, and self-definition

I Am Agatha

Agatha, a bristly painter fleeing her own darkness, decamps to rural New Mexico to live the reclusive life of a small-town curmudgeon. It is there she meets Alice, a mild widow with a deepening case of dementia who keeps steady vigil at her daughter's backyard grave. Despite Agatha's rough edges and fierce aversion to sentimentality, she surprises herself by falling in love, and her well-worn convictions begin to upend. As Alice's condition worsens, Agatha hatches a plan for them to live together at her remote residence at Mesa Portales. But when Alice's wayward son comes along with different ideas--and Alice suddenly goes missing--Agatha takes matters into her own hands with the help of a faithful thirteen-year-old-neighbor, a pair of shovels, and her trusty pickup, embarking on an unusual mission that calls into question whether some secrets are better kept buried. Sharp, watchful, at once thrillingly perceptive and hidden from herself, Agatha is as imposing as the vast landscape her rustic adobe home overlooks. Loosely inspired by the life of Agnes Martin, I Am Agatha introduces us to this irascible, indelible character who learns--over a stretch of strange, singular days--new ways to fathom life, death, and her own heart.

Fireflies in Winter

"1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her. Until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow. Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross. Deep amongst the cedars, Cora and Agnes find a fragile place of safety. But when Agnes's past closes in, they are confronted with the dangerous price of freedom--and of love..."-- Provided by publisher

Beyond Inheritance

"The new science of how DNA mutates over an individual's lifetime, with radical implications for our understanding of health and medicine."-- Provided by publisher

A Beautiful Loan

"In 1985 Dublin, nineteen-year-old Anna Hughes is in thrall to Peter Gallagher, an older, worldly man. Introverted and naive, Anna is captivated by Peter’s experience, his wide circle of friends and his thirst for adventure. Her obsessive longing for him leads to marriage and, eventually, a crushing betrayal. When Anna meets a kindhearted Algerian man, she finds herself falling in love with him. Life with Karim offers stability and renewed hope and, slowly, Anna begins to uncover deeper layers of herself. Unfolding over twenty-five years, this is a novel about the loss of innocence, the shame and humiliations of love, and the psychological cost of seeking salvation in others. A Beautiful Loan is a devastating story about what it means to be a woman, as well as a testament to literature’s ability to give us a language when we’re lost for words." -- book jacket

Awake

"At 2:30 a.m. on July 11th, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering in his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader, to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds parenting five kids alone with no clue about her own bank accounts. Having led millions of women for over a decade-urging them to embrace authenticity, find radical agency, and create healthy relationships-this seemed nothing less than total failure. In Awake, Jen shares for the first time what happened when she found herself completely lost at sea-and how she made it to shore. In candid, surprisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife-the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn't ask for. And, drawing on all her resources-from without and from within-Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point. More than one woman's story, Awake is a critical analysis of the story given to all of us: the story of gender limitations, religious subservience, body shame, self-erasure. With refreshing candor, Jen explores a Midlife Renaissance-grieving what's lost, cherishing possibility, and entering the second half of life wide awake." -- Provided by publisher

Almost Life

"Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her PhD at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman. The moment the two women meet, the spark is undeniable, but their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love. It is the beginning of a relationship that will define their lives and every decision they have yet to make... Erica and Laure's love story spans decades, marriage, children, secret trysts, and the agonizing changes--both personal and political--that might mean they can be together, after all. But when life brings them within touching distance again, will they be brave enough to seize a future together?"-- Amazon.com

After the Flood

A study of the later career of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, focusing on his creative output from 1991 through 2023. Drawing on materials from the Bob Dylan Archive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as published and unpublished lyrics, liner notes, recordings, films, and prose works, the book examines Dylan's artistic development during this period. Organized thematically and chronologically, it analyzes his albums, performances, and writings within broader historical and cultural contexts, including references to American history, world literature, and popular music traditions. The volume positions Dylan's later work as a significant phase in his career and explores its literary, musical, and historical dimensions.

The Tree of Light and Flowers

"Jane Whitefield is used to protecting vulnerable people, but after she gives birth, the fugitives she must rescue are her own family. A violent car crash brings on the premature birth of the baby that Jane Whitefield and her husband have hoped for, but it also shatters the period of calm in their lives like an earthquake triggering a tectonic shift. Within weeks, Jane's peaceful time as a new mother in a safe, harmonious home starts to revert to her harrowing previous life. She had spent over a decade rescuing and sheltering people from dangerous foes, taking them to new locations, and teaching them to live under new identities. It was something that she'd hoped to never have to do again. Nearly simultaneously, as though the events were connected, people who are thousands of miles apart in vastly different circumstances start to move. Some of them are in terrible need of help finding a route to safety. Some are dedicated to serving justice. Others are determined to capture the woman who makes people disappear so they can force her to reveal where their potential victims are now. All of these travelers are soon on their way to the old house in western New York. Suddenly the people requiring Jane's special skills include not only multiple fugitives, but also Jane herself, her husband, and their newborn, as the danger she faces comes from people who know how to find her. She'll need to use everything she's ever learned in order to survive." -- Publisher's website