ODY New Books Collection

Fly!

"Steph Wagner appeared to have it all--a beautiful family and a picture-perfect life--until her husband of nearly 20 years left theirfamily for another woman. A stay-at-home mom, Steph found herself facing financial devastation and some heavy emotional baggage. Her enviable life concealed the secrets of a harrowing childhood fraught with domestic abuse, and her divorce reopened old wounds. In the years since, Steph has built a thrilling new life and a powerhouse career as a nationally recognized authority on women's economic security.A model of resiliency and resourcefulness, her riveting personal story and hard-earned financial expertise have helped women across thecountry reclaim their financial futures. Her debut book, Fly! offers invaluable insights to help you: Uncover the roots of your relationship with money ; Evaluate your current financial landscape and learn how to make confident decisions around your wealth ; Set transformative goals and craft a comprehensive plan to turn your vision intoreality ; Cultivate an empowering, supportive network ; Discover how financial independence can enhance your relationships and unlock exciting new opportunities. Whether you're in your sixties or twenties--single, married, rebuilding after a devastating loss, or simply wanting to feel more prepared for the unexpected--this book is for every woman ready to take control of her financial life."-- Provided by publisher

Independent

In this book, Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House press secretary, reflects on her decision to identify as an Independent after years of work within Democratic administrations. Drawing on her experiences in national politics, she describes the period leading up to President Biden's withdrawal from his reelection campaign and discusses her perspective on internal dynamics within the party. Jean-Pierre explores the role of political identity in the United States and encourages readers to consider their own values when engaging with the political process. She addresses issues related to misinformation in recent elections and offers her viewpoint on how individuals might navigate a highly polarized environment. Combining personal narrative with political analysis, the book examines the growing number of voters who do not align strictly with major parties and presents questions intended to help readers assess their own political positions. Jean-Pierre's account reflects on broader themes of civic engagement, democratic participation, and the evolving nature of the American electorate.

Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time

"From the author of Madame Restell and Get Well Soon, a biography of Mamie Fish that explores how women used parties and social gatherings to gain power and prestige. Marion Graves Anthon Fish, known by the nicknames "Mamie" and "The Fun-Maker," threw the most epic parties in American history. This Gilded Age icon brought it all: lavish decor; A-list invitees; booze; pranks; and large animal guest stars. If you were a member of New York high society in the Peak Age of Innocence Era, you simply had to be on Mamie Fish's guest list. Mamie Fish understood that people didn't just need the formality of prior generations - they needed wit and whimsy. Make no mistake, however: Mamie Fish's story is about so much more than partying. In Glitz, Glam, and a Damn Good Time, readers will learn all about how Fish and her friends shaped the line of history, exerting their influence on business, politics, family relationships, and social change through elaborate social gatherings. In a time when women couldn't even own property, let alone run for office, if women wanted any of the things men got outside the home - glory, money, attention, social networking, leadership roles - they had to do it by throwing a decadent soiree or chairing a cotillion. To ensure people would hear and remember what she had to say, Mamie Fish lived her whole life at Volume 10, becoming famous not by playing the part of a saintly helpmeet, but by letting her demanding, bitchy, hilarious, dramatic freak flag fly. It's time to let modern readers in on the fun, the fabulousness,and the absolute ferocity that is Ms. Stuyvesant Fish - and her inimitable legacy."-- Provided by publisher

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

"In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next. For decades, two signatories of that letter ; Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares ; have studied how smarter-than-human intelligences will think, behave, and pursue their objectives. Their research says that sufficiently smart AIs will develop goals of their own that put them in conflict with us ; and that if it comes to conflict, an artificial superintelligence would crush us. The contest wouldn't even be close. How could a machine superintelligence wipe out our entire species? Why would it want to? Would it want anything at all? In this urgent book, Yudkowsky and Soares walk through the theory and the evidence, present one possible extinction scenario, and explain what it would take for humanity to survive. The world is racing to build something truly new under the sun. And if anyone builds it, everyone dies." -- Provided by publisher

Sympathy Tower Tokyo

In a near-future Tokyo where criminals are treated as victims and housed in a luxurious tower, architect Sara Machina struggles with past trauma, creative doubt, and a faltering romance while turning to an AI chatbot for clarity and inspiration.

What Happened to Millennials?

What happened to millennials? At the birth of America's largest living generation, the outlook was strong: unparalleled economic growth, the emerging Internet, the rise of the cell phone, and a geopolitics that had allegedly reached "the end of history" all set expectations exceedingly high for a cohort entering adulthood at the dawn of the new millennium. That adulthood -- a work in progress for more than a quarter century -- has been disrupted by war, recession, pandemic, and a sharp turn toward cultural and economic polarization. It has also been endlessly critiqued by others as immature, lazy, weak, incomplete, selfish, and supposedly riddled with failure. Now, 25 years after the first millennials began turning 18, Bloomberg News reporter Charlie Wells comes to the generation's defense with a cultural history of an adulthood disrupted. Drawing on hundreds of hours of intimate interviews with five millennials from across the country, he explores how the biggest events, ideas, and transformations of the century played out in private lives. Between the data points and statistical studies, news reports and archival records, his brutally honest, on-the-record conversations about love, loss, work, addiction, tragedy, and sacrifice reveal how a generation once minimized can no longer be ignored. What Happened to Millennials charts a path from our nostalgic past to a better future, shaped by the challenges we have surmounted, the people we have loved, and the adults we have become. -- Provided by publisher

What We Can Know

2014 : At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife's birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, 'A Corona for Vivien'. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery. 2119 : Just over one hundred years in the future, much of the western world has been submerged by rising seas following a catastrophic nuclear accident. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost. In the water-logged south of what used to be England, Thomas Metcalfe, a lonely scholar and researcher, longs for the early twenty-first century as he chases the ghost of one poem, 'A Corona for Vivian'. How wild and full of risk their lives were, thinks Thomas, as he pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the elusive poem's discovery, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a brutal crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well. What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force, a love story about both people and the words they leave behind, a literary detective story which reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.

Exiles

"A terrifying locked-room mystery from the author of William--this time set on a remote outpost on Mars. The human crew sent to prepare the first colony on Mars arrives to find the new base half-destroyed and the three robots sent to set it up in disarray--the machines have formed alliances, chosen their own names, and picked up some disturbing beliefs. Each must be interrogated. But one of them is missing. In this barren, hostile landscape where even machines have nightmares, the astronauts will need to examine all the stories--especially their own--to get to the truth." -- Provided by publisher

Will There Ever Be Another You

"Amid a global crisis, a young woman is trying to keep the pieces together--of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She's afraid of her own floorboards, and WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON'T HURT ME plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn't know who they are. Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she'll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. 'I'm sorry not to respond to your email,' she writes, 'but I live completely in the present now.' Will There Ever Be Another You is the brain-shredding, phosphorescent story of one woman's dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as a profound investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss, from one of the most original writers." -- Dust jacket

What a Time to Be Alive

A deeply moving and often hilarious novel following a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her into fame and influence just as she's finally beginning to reckon with her complicated past. Lola Treasure Gold can't figure out her life. She's broke, she's unemployed, she's back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse-unspeakably worse-one of her closest friends has just died. So nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her lap: she stars in a Very Viral Video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru. With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi-still alive, thank god-Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can't seem to find hers: she's grieving, she's accused of using the notoriety of her friend's death to fuel her rise, and she's full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China's one-child policy; got deported when Lola was eight; and now has totally disappeared. Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang's kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen. What a Time to Be Alive asks if we can look honestly at the world and still love it: the answer is a brilliant, resounding yes.

We Survived the Night

"A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today and the director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence." --Dust jacket flap

Trying

"Over the years that Chloé Caldwell had been married and hoping to conceive a child, she'd read everything she could find on infertility. But no memoir or message board reflected her experience; for one thing, most stories ended with in vitro fertilization, a baby, or both. She wanted to offer something different. Caldwell began a book. She imagined a selective journal about her experience coping with stasis and uncertainty. Is it time to quit coffee, find a new acupuncturist, get another blood test? Her questions extended to her job at a clothing boutique and to her teaching and writing practice. Why do people love equating publishing books with giving birth? What is the right amount of money to spend on pants or fertility treatments? How much trying is enough? She ignored the sense that something else in her life was wrong that was not on the page . . . until she extracted a confession from her husband. Broken by betrayal but freed from domesticity, Caldwell felt reawakened, to long-buried desires, to her queer identity, to pleasure and possibility. She kept writing, making sense of her new reality as it took shape. With the candor, irreverence, and heart that have made Caldwell's work beloved, Trying intimately captures a self in a continuous process of becoming-and the mysterious ways that writing informs that process." -- Provided by publisher

Things That Disappear

"'Things that disappear' is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance, from everyday objects like socks, to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to East German sites like the Palace of the Republic or the Berlin sightlines now blocked by the new construction. Erpenbeck asks, 'Is there a perpetrator who makes things that I know and cherish disappear?' These things disappear, and yet do they really? Do they remain in our memories more fully than if they continued to exist? Beautifully translated by Kurt Beals, 'Things that disappear' offers a window into the Booker Prize-winning writer's sense of the past and of her own self as a writer." -- Page 4 of cover

The Ten Year Affair

"When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming--until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist. As reality splits, the everyday details of Cora's life--her depressing marketing job, her daughter's new fascination with the afterlife, her husband's obsession with podcasts about the history of rope--gain fresh perspective. The intersecting and diverging timelines blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy, questioning what might have been and what truly matters." -- Dust jacket flap

Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope

"The romantic vision of the civil rights movement is exhausted, and its inverse, Afro-Pessimism, offers a self-defeating irony. To resolve this impasse, Brandon Terry transforms the standard story of America's democratic awakening through a tragic reading of the civil rights movement: as an ongoing struggle still worthy of affirmation." -- Provided by publisher

Remain

After a stay in a psychiatric facility for depression, New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design his best friend's summer home and start over. Still haunted by his sister Sylvia's death--and her unsettling claim that their family can see spirits--Tate tries to ground himself in logic and work. But everything changes when he meets Wren, a captivating young woman whose warmth and mystery draw him in instantly. As their connection deepens, Tate begins to sense that something dark lies beneath Wren's seemingly perfect small-town life. To save her--and himself--he must uncover the truth about her past and confront questions that blur the line between the living and the dead. A haunting and emotional story about love, loss, and the thin veil that separates reality from the unseen.

One of Us

A playfully macabre and utterly thrilling tale about orphaned twins on the run from their murderous uncle who find refuge in a bizarre traveling carnival, from a master of literary horror It's 1915 and the world is transforming, but for thirteen-year-old Bolt and Eleanor-twins so close they can literally read each other's minds-life is falling apart. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims to be their long-lost uncle Charlie, the only kin they have left. During a late-night poker game, when one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee. Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders and father to its many members. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, who travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. There's Minnie, the three-legged lady, and Dr. Chui, who stands over seven feet tall; Thistle Britches, the clown with no nose, and Rosalie, who can foretell the death of anyone she meets. After a lifetime of having only each other, Eleanor and Bolt are finally part of something bigger. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril as strange as it is terrifying, one which will forever alter the trajectory of their lives. An ode to the misfits and the marginalized, One of Us is a riotous and singularly creepy celebration of the strange and the spectacular and of family in its many forms.

Finding My Way

"Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate and New York Times bestselling author of I Am Malala, shares the most private journey of her young life-a story of friendship and first love, of mental illness and self-discovery, and of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In 2012, Malala Yousafzai was thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old, after the Taliban's brutal attack on her life. Millions of people around the world were inspired by her courage and dedication to fighting for girls' education, lining up to meet her and filling stadiums to hear her speak. But away from the cameras and crowds, Malala was still a young woman struggling to find her place in the world. Now, in Finding My Way, Malala shares a breathtaking story of searching for identity, a candid exploration of coming of age in the spotlight,and an intimate look at her life today. With an accessible voice that showcases the parts of her life rarely shown in public, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her remarkable past and hopeful for the future."-- Provided by publisher

Eden's
Clock

"Rendered mute at the Battle of Gettysburg, Frederick Heigold returns to Dobbs Ferry, New York, where he marries a resolute suffragist and resumes his vocation as a clocksmith. Bereft after she dies in a freak accident, he accepts a commission to repair the enormous clock on the San Francisco Embarcadero, but the routine railway journey becomes a six-month odyssey. Finally reaching the Pacific, after having survived imprisonment, shipwreck on Edisto Island, and run-ins with assorted roughnecks and thieves, he happens upon novelist Jack London drinking in the Palace Hotel bar--just before the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. Eden's Clock, the twelfth and final stand-alone book in The American Novels series, calls into question the American belief in individualism to shape our destiny when confronted with irrepressible, chaotic forces"-- Provided by publisher

Dinner with King Tut

"Whether it's the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame... and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives? History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors' lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: They make human mummies. They investigate the unsolved murders of ancient bog bodies. They carve primitive spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea--all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights. Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archaeologists on their adventures across the globe, from the Andes to the South Seas. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads--and, in novelistic interludes, spins gripping tales about the lives of our ancestors with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research. Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning revelations about our past, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long gone and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way."-- Provided by publisher