ODY New Books Collection

A Season of Light

"A tightly bound Nigerian family living in Florida navigate wounds passed down from generation to generation."-- Provided by publisher

Right-Wing Women

"Andrea Dworkin's Right-Wing Women is a crucial and deeply illuminating analysis of the right's position on abortion, homosexuality, antisemitism, female poverty, and antifeminism."-- Provided by publisher

John Soane's
Cabinet of Curiosities

An in-depth study that sheds a fascinating new light on Sir John Soane (1753-1837) and his world-renowned collection. Sir John Soane's architecture has enjoyed a revival of interest over the last seventy years, yet Soane as a collector, the strategy behind and motivation for Soane's bequest to the nation has remained largely unexplored. While Soane referred to the display of objects in his house and museum as "studies for my own mind," he never explained what he meant by this, and the ambiguity surrounding his motivation remains perennially fascinating. This book illuminates a side of Soane's personality unfamiliar to most students of his life and work by examining key strands in his collection and what they reveal about Soane and the psychology of collecting. Topics include the display of antiquities; his fascination with ruins, both literal and figurative; his singular response to Gothic architecture; and his investment in modern British painting and sculpture. These aspects are bookended by an introductory biographical chapter that highlights the ways in which his family and career informed his collecting habits as well as an epilogue that analyzes the challenges of turning a private house and collection into a public museum.

A Hudson Valley Reckoning

"A Hudson Valley Reckoning tells the story of northern slavery from the perspectives of two intertwined families. Debra Bruno's Dutch ancestors were enslavers, while Eleanor C. Mire's ancestors descended from those enslaved by Bruno's family. Despite their dark history, the two found a way to honor those whose stories had been lost."-- Provided by publisher

Homes for Living

"A tale of two NYC affordable housing co-ops' struggle over privatization, public goods, and the future of American housing."-- Provided by publisher

Heretic

"In the beginning was the Word," reads the Gospel of John. This sentence and the words of all four gospels are central to the teachings of the Christian church and have shaped Western art, literature, and language, and the Western mind. Yet in the years after the death of Christ, there was not merely one word, nor any consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. There were many different Jesuses: the Jesus who scorned his parents and harmed those who opposed him; the Jesus who sold his twin into slavery; the Jesus who had someone crucified in his stead. Moreover, in the early years of the millennium, there were many other saviors, many sons of gods who healed the wounded and cured the sick. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable--even heretical--and they faded from view. Now, in Heretic, Catherine Nixey tells their extraordinary and thrilling story, one of plurality, power, and chance. It is a story about what might have been."-- Dust jacket flap

Hello Stranger

"Explores modern queer romance and the expansive possibilities of ephemeral intimacies. Hello Stranger is a book about chance encounters--at a bar, through social media, in a bathhouse--and what a stranger can reveal about who we are and who we could still yet be. A stranger, after all, is a site of endless possibilities. As Manuel Betancourt looks back on his past relationships, he turns to characters and narratives that helped him question notions of what monogamy and coupledom (and relationships and marriage) can and should look like. From films like Before Sunrise and Cruising to the poetry of Frank O'Hara and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, Betancourt uses pop culture to make sense of the alluring prospect of forging intimacies with strangers--even, or especially, the strangers within ourselves."-- Amazon.com

Dust and Light

This essay collection from the National Book Award--winning writer examines how historical facts inspire fiction, exploring the craft of transforming history into narrative through reflections on renowned authors and the writer's own process.

Death Takes Me

"A city is always a cemetery. When a professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a man in a dark alley, she finds a stark warning scrawled on the brick wall beside the body, written in coral nail polish: "Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert." After reporting the crime to the police, the professor becomes the lead informant of the case, led by a detective with a newfound obsession with poetry and a long list of failures on her back. But what has the professor really seen? As more bodies of men are found across the city, the detective tries to decipher the meaning of the poems, and if they are facing a darker stream of violence spreading throughout the city. Death Takes Me is a thrilling masterpiece of literary fiction that flips the traditional crime narrative on its head, in a world where death is rampant and violence is gendered. Written in sentences as sharp as the cuts on the bodies of the victims - a word which, in Spanish, is always feminine - Death Takes Me unfolds with the charged logic of a dream, moving from the professor's classroom into the slippery worlds of Latin American poetry and art, as it explores with masterful imagination the unstable terrains of desire and sexuality"-- Provided by publisher

Casualties of Truth

"Prudence Wright seems to have it all: a loving husband, Davis; a spacious home in Washington, DC; and the past glories of a successful career at McKinsey, which now enables her to dedicate her days to her autistic son Roland. When she and Davis head out for dinner with one of Davis's new colleagues on a stormy summer evening filled with startling and unwelcome interruptions, Prudence has little reason to think that certain details of her history might arise sometime between cocktails and the appetizer course. Yet when Davis's colleague turns out to be Matshediso, a man from Prudence's past, she is transported back to the formative months she spent as a law student in South Africa in 1996. As an intern at a Johannesburg law firm, Prudence attended sessions of the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, which uncovered the many horrors and human rights abuses of the Apartheid state, and which fundamentally shaped her sense of righteousness and justice. Prudence experienced personal horrors in South Africa as well, long hidden and now at risk of coming to light. When Matshediso finally reveals the real reason behind his sudden reappearance, he will force Prudence to examine her most deeply held beliefs and to excavate inner reserves of resilience and strength...With keen insight and gripping tension, Casualties of Truth explosively mines questions of whether we are ever truly able to remove the stains of our past and how we may attempt to reconcile with unquestionable wrongs."-- Provided by publisher

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

"A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones."-- Provided by publisher

Brother Brontë

"Two women fight to save their dystopian border town--and literature--in this gonzo near-future adventure. The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town's mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick's pockets. Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí--the latter of whom, one of the town's last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí's possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick's forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city--and in the process, unlock Rivas's connection to Three Rivers itself. An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance."-- Publisher's website

The Boyhood of Cain

"A searing novel of love and betrayal as a young boy comes of age in the heart of England, from an exquisite new voice. In a small village in England, in the shadow of an ancient abbey nestled between rivers, a young boy is growing up. Daniel is highly intelligent but little understood by his family, and so a secret passion burns inside him-for love, for certainty, and for recognition. His father is a man of grand gestures but few practical skills, and his beautiful mother is attentive but compromised by her own unhappiness and fading ideals. When Daniel's father loses his job as the headmaster of the local school, the family is pulled beneath the undertow of his whims, stumbling into a rural life for which they are ill-prepared. The arrival of Philip, a new boy at school, whom Daniel worships with a confused intensity, is his sole solace. Before long, both boys fall under the spell of a charismatic art teacher, setting Daniel on a perilous course that could lead to the betrayal of all he loves. Tender, brutal, and enthralling, The Boyhood of Cain is a remarkable portrait of a young boy caught between mother and father, between self and desire, and between obedience and freedom. It evokes the passions and private wounds of youth and plumbs the turning points in our lives that make us who we are."-- Provided by publisher

Animals, Robots, Gods

"Moral relationships saturate the living world, and the line between the human and nonhuman is blurrier than we might think. Animals, Robots, Gods provides a bold new vision of ethics defined less by the individual mind or society and more by our interactions with those around us, whether they are the pets we keep, the gods we believe in, or the machines we endow with life. Drawing on pioneering fieldwork around the globe by some of today's leading researchers, acclaimed anthropologist Webb Keane invites us to expand our moral imagination. We learn about the ethical dilemmas of South Asian animal rights activists, Balinese cockfighters, cowboys, and Japanese robot fanciers. We meet a hunter in the Yukon who explains to a bear why it must come out of hibernation and generously give itself up to him, a cancer sufferer in Thailand who sees his tumor as a reincarnated ox, and a computer that persuades users to confess their anxieties as if they were patients on a psychiatrist's couch. Through these and other stories, Keane challenges us to rethink our most basic ideas about who - and what - we deem worthy of moral consideration." -- Adapted from publisher's description

Amrikan

"What is Indian food in America? In her eagerly anticipated debut cookbook, acclaimed food writer Khushbu Shah injects an electric and irresistible energy into the story of Indian food, with 125 recipes inspired by the cooking of the diaspora. From the savory and bold flavors of Achari Paneer Pizza to the ultimate home-cooked comfort meal, a pot of Spinach Tadka Dal with rice, Khushbu's recipes are flavor-packed, party-pleasing, and wonderfully surprising. She invites readers on a journey far beyond butter chicken (though she has a stellar recipe for it), offering instructions for preparing meals, drinks, and desserts as diverse as Saag Paneer Lasagna, Keralan Fried Chicken Sandwiches, Pani Puri Mojitos, and a Masala Chai Basque Cheesecake. Khushbu makes it easy to dive in, equipping home cooks with a list of simple-to-find pantry staples alongside vibrant images, clever tips and tricks, and illuminating essays that introduce a thrilling voice in American food." -- Back cover

Stuff

"Kim Hastreiter, co-founder of the beloved 'PAPER magazine', has spent the last 50 years amassing a vast and iconoclastic collection of stuff. This volume, aptly titled 'STUFF', chronicles an extraordinary slice of history and the people who defined it, using Hastreiter’s singular edit of art, fashion, design, photography, books and ephemera as a lens. In these pages you’ll meet Hastreiter’s amazing friends: at an all night party in the basement of an East Village church with Keith Haring; a private art sale with Jeffrey Deitch in Phyllis Diller’s kitchen; or impromptu cocktail at Trader Vic’s with Salvador Dalí and Joey Arias. 'STUFF' is more than a memoir; it’s a loopy, joyous, chaotic ride through the last half century of cultural chaos in the greatest city on earth. Whether you are an OG or a kid, a culture vulture, artist, design buff, fashion nerd, skater, collector, chef, cinephile, New Yorker, uptowner, downtowner, out of towner, or something else entirely, 'STUFF' will make you feel like you’re sitting with Kim in her garden high above Washington Square Park, her booming voice imploring you to pursue your life with compulsive enthusiasm. The book features an exclusive cover design by the elusive, yet legendary artist Jim Joe, best known for designing the iconic album cover for Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late." -- taken from publisher's website

You Didn't
Hear This From Me

"Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she'd typically collect over drinks with friends. She realized she wasn't the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its own and the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture. In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we're entitled to every detail of a celebrity's personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define "gossip," anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of gossiping: how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend's ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth - and how much the truth really matters in the first place."-- Provided by publisher

There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die

"From one of Denmark’s most celebrated twentieth-century writers, the author of the acclaimed Copenhagen Trilogy, comes There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die, a major volume of selected poetry written throughout Tove Ditlevsen’s life. Infused with the same wry nihilism, quiet intensity, dark humor, and crystalline genius that readers savor in her prose, these are heartbreak poems, childhood poems, self-portraits, death poems, wounded poems, confessional poems, and love poems―poems that stare into the surfaces that seduce and deceive us. They describe childhood, longing, loss, and memory, obsessively tracing their imprints and intrusions upon everyday life. With morbid curiosity, Ditlevsen’s poems turn toward the uncanny and the abject, approaching gingerly. They stitch the gray scale of daily disappointment with vivid, unsparing detail, a degree of precision that renders loneliness psychedelic. Speaking across generations to both the passions of youth and the agonies of adulthood, There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die reveals everyday life stripped of its excesses, exposing its bones and bare qualities: the normal and the strange, the meaningful and the meaningless. These startling, resonant poems are both canonical and contemporary, and demand to be shared with friends, loved ones, nemeses, and strangers alike." -- Amazon

The Strange Case of Jane O.

"A woman born with perfect memory suddenly develops a series of eerie psychological symptoms--blackouts, hallucinations, premonitions, an inexplicable sense of dread. It is the first year after her child is born, and she and her untraditional psychiatrist struggle to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane, to her mind. Then Jane suddenly goes missing and is found a day later lying unconscious in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, with no memory of her missing hours. A police detective becomes suspicious of Jane, and begins to track her, convinced that Jane is lying. What happened to Jane, and what do these peculiar experiences, including in something called a fugue state, have to do with a hallucination Jane has about a young man she knew twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? The extraordinary mystery behind Jane's symptoms leads the forward-thinking young Dr. Byrd to reassess everything he thought he knew about Jane, the mind, psychology, and reality, including the events of his own life. This stunning novel is a provocative literary puzzle about memory, identity, consciousness, and the tender bonds of love between people, as well as a celebration of the gymnastic capabilities and the unexplained nature of the human mind." -- Provided by publisher

Something Rotten

"Cecilie is a fed-up New York Times reporter. Her husband, Reuben, is a disgraced former NPR host and grudging stay-at-home dad. Neither can wait to flee New York and spend the summer in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cecilie's hometown. But their vacation begins to turn inside out as soon as they land: Cecilie's first love, Jonas, has been diagnosed with a rare, fatal illness. All of Cecilie's friends are desperate to get him help--that is, except for Mikkel, a high-powered journalist who happens to be the only one Jonas will listen to. Mikkel's influence quickly extends to Reuben, who's not only intoxicated by Mikkel's charm, but discovers in him a new model of masculinity--one he found hopelessly absent in America. As Mikkel indoctrinates Reuben with ever more depraved stunts, Reuben senses something is seriously amiss. Cecilie, too, begins to question who to trust--even herself. Drawn in by the gravity of the past, she can't help but stray onto the road not taken." -- Publisher's website