ODY New Books Collection

The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon

"A new, revolutionary look into the brilliant life of Pat Nixon. In America's collective consciousness, Pat Nixon has long been perceived as enigmatic. She was voted "Most Admired Woman in the World" in 1972 and made Gallup Poll's top ten list of most admired women fourteen times. She survived the turmoil of the Watergate scandal with her popularity and dignity intact. And yet, the media often portrayed Mrs. Nixon as elusive and mysterious. The real Pat Nixon, however, bore little resemblance to the woman so often described in the press. Pat married California lawyer Richard Nixon in June of 1940, becoming a wife, mother, and her husband's trusted political partner in short order. As the couple rose to prominence, Pat became Second Lady from 1953-1961 and then First Lady from 1969-1974, forging her own graceful path between the protocols of the strait-laced mid-century and the bra-burning Sixties and Seventies. Pat was a highly traveled First Lady, visiting eighty-three countries during her tenure. After a devastating earthquake in Peru in 1970, she personally flew in medical supplies and food to hard-hit areas, meeting one-on-one with victims of the tragedy. The First Lady's 1972 trips with her husband to China and to Russia were critical to the détente that resulted. President Nixon frequently sent her to represent him at significant events in South America and Africa solo. Pat greatly expanded upon previous preservation efforts in the White House, obtaining more art and antique objects than any other First Lady. She was progressive on women's issues, favoring the Equal Rights Amendment and backing a targeted effort to get more women into high level government jobs. Pat strongly supported nominating a woman for the Supreme Court. She was pro-choice, supporting women's reproductive rights publicly even before the landmark Roe v. Wade case in 1973. When asked to define her 'signature' First Lady agenda, she defied being put into a box, often saying: "People are my project." There was nothing Pat Nixon enjoyed more than working one-on-one directly with ordinary human beings, especially with women, children, and those in need. In The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon, Heath Hardage Lee presents readers with the essential nature of this First Lady, an empathetic, adventurous, self-made woman who wanted no power or influence, but who connected warmly with both ordinary Americans and people from different cultures she encountered world-wide."-- Provided by publisher

The Missing Thread

"A dazzlingly ambitious history of the ancient world that places women at the center--from Cleopatra to Boudica, Sappho to Fulvia, and countless other artists, writers, leaders, and creators of history. Around four thousand years ago, the mysterious Minoans sculpted statues of topless women with snakes slithering on their arms. Over one thousand years later, Sappho wrote great poems of longing and desire. For classicist Daisy Dunn, these women--whether they were simply sitting at their looms at home or participating in the highest echelons of power--were up to something much more interesting than other histories would lead us to believe. Together, these women helped to make antiquity as we know it. In this monumental work, Dunn reconceives our understanding of the ancient world by emphasizing women's roles within it. The Missing Thread never relegates women to the sidelines and is populated with well-known names such as Cleopatra and Agrippina, as well as the likes of Achaemenid consort Atossa and Olympias, a force in Macedon. Spanning three thousand years, the story moves from Minoan Crete to Mycenaean Greece, from Lesbos to Asia Minor, from the Persian Empire to the royal court of Macedonia, and concludes with Rome and its growing empire. The women of antiquity are undeniably woven throughout the fabric of history, and in The Missing Thread they finally take center stage"-- Provided by publisher

Inventing the Modern

"This book profiles 14 pioneering figures who made an indelible mark not only on MoMA, but on the culture of their time. Inventing the Modern transports the reader to the grit and glamour of midtown Manhattan in the 1930s and '40s. It deepens our understanding of MoMA's history and contributes to a broader understanding of women's achievement in the 20th century." -- Provided by publisher

Herscht 07769

"The gentle giant Florian Herscht has a problem: having faithfully attended Herr Köhler's adult education classes in physics, he is convinced that disaster is imminent. And so he embarks upon a one-sided correspondence with Chancellor Angela Merkel, to convince her of the danger of the complete destruction of all physical matter. Florian works for the Boss (the head of a local neo-Nazi gang), who has taken him under his wing and gotten him work as a graffiti cleaner in the small eastern German town of Kana. The Boss is enraged by a graffiti artist who is defacing the various monuments to Johann Sebastian Bach in Thuringia with wolf emblems. A Bach fanatic and director of an amateur orchestra, the Boss is determined to catch the culprit with the help of his gang. Florian has no choice but to join the chase. Havoc ensues when real wolves are sighted in the area . . . Written in one cascading sentence with the power of atomic particles colliding, Krasznahorkai's novel is a tour de force, a morality play, a blistering satire, a hilarious and devastating encapsulation of our helplessness at the moral and environmental dilemmas we face today."-- Provided by publisher

Elevator in S̀ài Gòn

"A young Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Saigon for her estranged mother's funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house in Saigon, and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumored to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother mysteriously fell down the elevator shaft, dying in an instant. After the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family's history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotski, who emerges from her mother's notebook. Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotski through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines. Meanwhile, she also researches her mother's past-zigzagging across France and Asia-trying to find clues to the spiraling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered-and perhaps unanswerable. Still banned in Vietnam, Elevator in Saigon is a thrilling novel combining elements of the detective thriller, historical romance, postcolonial ghost story, and a scathing satire of life in a communist state."-- Provided by publisher

Defectors

"An award-winning journalist's deeply reported exploration of how race, identity, and political trauma have influenced the rise in far-right sentiment among Latinos, and how this group can shape American politics. Democrats have historically assumed they can rely on the Latino vote, but recent elections have shown this to be far from the case. In fact, despite his vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric and disastrous border policies, Trump won a higher percentage of the Latino vote in 2020 than he did in 2016. Now, VICE News reporter Paola Ramos pulls back the curtain on these voters, traveling around the country to uncover what motivates them to vote for and support issues that seem so at odds with their self-interest. From coast to coast, cities to rural towns, Defectors introduces readers to underdog GOP candidates, January 6th insurrectionists, Evangelical pastors and culture war crusaders, aiming to identify the influences at the heart of this rightward shift. Through their stories, Ramos shows how tribalism, traditionalism, and political trauma within the Latino community has been weaponized to radicalize and convert voters who, like many of their white counterparts, are fearful of losing their place in American society. We meet Monica de la Cruz, a Republican congresswoman from the Rio Grande Valley who won on a platform centered on finishing "what Donald Trump started" and pushing the Great Replacement Theory; Ralph Arellanes, a Mexican man who refers to himself as a Spaniard and opposed the removal of a statue of a Spanish conquistador in New Mexico; Dominicans in the Bronx who voted for Trump; Evangelical pastor Luis Cabrera, who is pushing to "Make America Godly Again"; and Latina members of Moms for Liberty, a conservative group at the forefront of pushing bills like "Don't Say Gay." Cross-cultural and assiduously reported, Defectors highlights how one of America's most powerful and misunderstood electorates may come to define the future of American politics."-- Provided by publisher

Death at the Sign of the Rook

"The sixth Jackson Brodie mystery. Jackson and a familiar cast of characters must solve a string of art thefts."-- Provided by publisher

Circle of Hope

"A Pulitzer Prize winner's startling, intimate portrait of a church, its radical mission to build community, its heartbreaking crisis, and the future of faith in America."-- Provided by publisher

Christopher Isherwood inside Out

"A stunningly intimate portrait of the writer and gay cultural icon and of his lifelong search for authenticity."-- Provided by publisher

The Burning Earth

In this magisterial book, historian Sunil Amrith twins the stories of environment and Empire, of genocide and eco-cide, of an extraordinary expansion of human freedom and its planetary costs. Drawing on an extraordinarily rich diversity of primary sources, he reckons with the ruins of Portuguese silver mining in Peru, British gold mining in South Africa, and oil extraction in Central Asia. He explores the railroads and highways that brought humans to new terrains of battle against each other and against stubborn nature. Amrith's account of the ways in which the First and Second World Wars involved the massive mobilization not only of men, but of other natural resources from around the globe, provides an essential new way of understanding war as an irreversible reshaping of the planet. So too does this book reveal the reality of migration as consequence of environmental harm.The imperial, globe-spanning pursuit of profit, joined with new forms of energy and new possibilities of freedom from hunger and discomfort, freedom to move and explore, has brought change to every inch of the Earth. Amrith relates in gorgeous prose, and on the largest canvas, a mind-altering epic--vibrant with stories, characters, and vivid images--in which humanity might find the collective wisdom to save itself.

Brothers and Ghosts

"A young woman, torn between two cultures, belonging to neither. A family, torn apart by a war they had no choice about. Kîèu, calls herself Kim because it's easier for Europeans to pronounce. She knows little about her Vietnamese family's history until she receives a Facebook message from her estranged uncle in America, telling her that her grandmother is dying. Her father and uncle haven't spoken since the end of the Vietnam War. One brother supported the Vietcong, while the other sided with the Americans. When Kîèu and her parents travel to America to join the rest of the family in California for the funeral, questions relating to their past - to what has been suppressed - resurface and demand to be addressed." -- Publisher

Be Ready when the Luck Happens

"Ina Garten, the author of thirteen best-selling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and the cultural icon whose face has launched a thousand memes, shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table."-- Provided by publisher

Kingmaker

"From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, an electrifying re-examination of one of the 20th century's greatest unsung power players When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, the obituaries that followed were predictably scathing - and many were downright sexist. Written off as a mere courtesan and social climber, her true legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life and her infamous erotic adventures. Much of what she did behind the scenes - on both sides of the Atlantic - remained invisible and secret. That is, until now: with a wealth of fresh research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell unveils for the first time the full, spectacular story of how she left an indelible mark on the world today. At age 20 Churchill's beloved daughter-in-law became a "secret weapon" during World War II, strategically wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and generals to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) to the British cause against Hitler. After the war, she helped to transform Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli into Italy's 'uncrowned king' on the international stage and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary subtle powers to charm world leaders and help efforts to bring peace to Bosnia, playing her part in what was arguably the high-water mark of American global supremacy. There are few at any time who have operated as close to the center of power over five decades and two continents, and there is practically no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whose lives she did not touch, including the Kennedys, Truman Capote, Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra. Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, palaces and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman's rightful place at the heart of history."-- Provided by publisher

The Wisdom of Sheep

"A touching, wise and surprising chronicle of the rich inner lives of animals, drawn from Rosamund Young's extraordinary lifetime as an organic farmer. We talk a lot about sheep: following the herd, counting sheep to fall asleep and looking out for wolves in sheep's clothing. But, just like people, animals don't always follow the pack. Some are affectionate while others butt heads; some follow the leader while some guide the whole flock home. With startling beauty and tenderness, Rosamund Young reveals the remarkable emotional and intellectual complexity of the animals she lives with on her family farm, and the story of her life's work, with the intimacy of a personal diary. Just as she did in her acclaimed book, The Secret Life of Cows, Young transports readers to the wild meadows of Kite's Nest Farm, where she has worked as an organic farmer for over forty years, at the beck and call of the abundant wildlife, living in direct contact with the consciousnesses of her beloved animals. Through tender portraits of her sometimes eventful but always rewarding days at Kite's Nest, Young recounts a multitude of discoveries, such as how cows converse with one another, why sheep are so strongheaded--and why you should never, ever text whilst milking. That's a lesson you need learn only once. This is a story of joy, discovery, cooperation and, sometimes, heartbreak. But through it all, The Wisdom of Sheep is a fresh and delightful tribute to the miraculous inner worlds of the animals all around us and what we can learn about them, and about ourselves, by watching them more closely."-- Provided by publisher

The Women behind the Door

"A powerful, moving mother-daughter story filled with struggle and redemption by Booker-Prize winning author Roddy Doyle. At sixty-six, Paula Spencer--mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor--has finally started to live her life. She has a job at the dry cleaners she enjoys, her boyfriend Joe is a text away when she needs him, and her four children now have the healthy families and petty dramas that Paula could have only hoped for. Despite its ghosts, Paula has started to push her past aside. That is until her eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep one day. Nicola is everything Paula wasn't--independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, a "success"--but now she is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. She has left her family and come to stay. As Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter must untangle past memory, trauma, and revelations to confront what they mean to each other--and who they want to be. A timely and powerful novel of regrets, reparations, and reconciliations, The Women Behind the Door is a delicately devastating portrait of shame and the inescapable shadow it casts over families. Many readers will welcome the chance to reconnect with this strong, singular character whom we have seen in The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Paula Spencer, but all readers will be glad to have Paula in their life now."-- Provided by publisher

We're
Alone

"Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat's childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We're Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding themes: environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience. From hurricanes to political violence, from her days as a new student at a Brooklyn elementary school knowing little English to her account of a shooting hoax at a Miami mall, Danticat has an extraordinary ability to move from the personal to the global and back again. Throughout, literature and art prove to be her reliable companions and guides in both tragedies and triumphs. Danticat is an irresistible presence on the page: full of heart, outrage, humor, clear thinking, and moral questioning, while reminding us of the possibilities of community. And so "we're alone" is both a fearsome admission and an intimate invitation-we're alone now, we can talk. We're Alone is a book that asks us to think through some of the world's intractable problems while deepening our understanding of one of the most significant novelists at work today."-- Provided by publisher

A Termination

"In 1969, Honor Moore was twenty-three, a theater student yearning for love and working for radical change, but studying administration and keeping secret, even from herself, her wish to imagine the world by becoming a poet. There was an older lover, a professor, and, with another man, an unwanted sexual encounter. That spring, she had an abortion. A Termination is the story of the young woman who made that decision, and of how that act of resistance, then shrouded in fear and silence, has reverberated throughout her life since. Framing the story is a self-portrait of the author fifty-five years later, a woman with a sexual past, a poet who has made her own way. A lyric, searching memoir, A Termination asks what it means to write with full honesty about one's life-to explore who we were, and how our choices shape and allow who we become."-- Provided by publisher

The Rent Collectors

"The gripping true story about a botched gang murder set in the invisible economy of LA's immigrant street vendors."-- Provided by publisher

Monet

"A groundbreaking look at the life and art of one of the most influential and modern painters of the late nineteenth century and founder of the Impressionist movement. Drawing on thousands of never-before translated letters and unpublished sources, this new biography reveals dramatic new information about the life and work of one of the late 19th century's most important painters. Despite being mocked at the beginning of his career, and living hand to mouth, Monet risked all to pursue his vision, and his early work along the banks of the Seine in the 1860s-70s would come to be revered as Impressionism. In the following decades, he emerged as a celebrated leader of the new painting in one of the most exciting cultural moments in Paris, before withdrawing to his house and garden to paint the late Water Lilies, which were ignored during his lifetime and would later would have a major influence on all 20th century painters both figurative and abstract. This is the first time we see the turbulent life of this volatile and voracious man who was as obsessed by his love affairs as he was by nature. He changed his art three times when the women at the center of his life changed with a nod to the behavior of such painters as Picasso. His closest friend was Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau but Proust as well as Zola, Renoir, Pissarro and Manet were also a part of his life. Brilliant and absorbing, this biography will forever change our understanding of Monet's life and work."-- Provided by publisher

The Letters of Seamus Heaney

"The letters of Seamus Heaney provide us with an intimate, multi-layered understanding of the extraordinary poet's life and mind."-- Provided by publisher