ODY New Books Collection

Creation Lake

"Creation Lake is a novel about a freelance agent, a 34-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and bold opinions and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. We never learn her real name. Sadie has met her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by "cold bump"-- making him believe the encounter was accidental. And like everyone she chooses to interact with, Lucien is useful to her, used by her. Sadie operates on strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts," shadowy figures in business and government, instruct. First, these contacts want her to incite provocation. Then they want more. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists, who lives in a vast network of underground caves on his daughter's land and communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past before civilization. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those whom she surveils, Bruno Lacombe is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story. Written in short, vaulting sections, Rachel Kushner's rendition of "noir" is taut, propulsive, and dazzling. Creation Lake is Kushner's finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, keen insights, and unforgettable pleasure. From Rachel Kushner on the title: My character Bruno refers to "a deep cistern of voices, the lake of our creation" -- meaning all of human history, the whole struggle in which chains of civilizations try to figure out how to live. He believes he can hear these voices underground. To me, "Creation Lake" suggests intrigue. Creation of what? In Sadie's case, a persona, a feint, a manipulation. But also in her case, the creation possibly of her own soul."-- Provided by publisher

At War with Ourselves

"At War with Ourselves is the story of helping a disruptive President drive necessary shifts in U.S. foreign policy at a critical moment in history. McMaster entered an administration beset by conflict and the hyper partisanship of American politics. With the candor of a soldier and the perspective of a historian, McMaster rises above the fray to lay bare the good, the bad, and the ugly of Trump's presidency and give readers insight into what a second Trump term would look like. While all administrations are subject to backstabbing and infighting, some of Trump's more unscrupulous political advisors were determined to undermine McMaster and others to advance their narrow agendas. McMaster writes candidly about Cabinet officials who, deeply disturbed by Trump's language and behavior, prioritized controlling the President over collaborating to provide the President with options. McMaster offers a frank and fresh assessment of the achievements and failures of his tenure as National Security Advisor and the challenging task of maintaining one's bearings and focus on the mission in a hectic and malicious environment. Determined to transcend the war within the administration and focus on national security priorities, McMaster forged coalitions in Washington and internationally to help Trump advance U.S. interests. Trump's character and personality helped him make tough decisions, but sometimes prevented him from sticking to them. McMaster adroitly assesses the record of Trump's presidency in comparison to the Obama and Biden administrations. With the 2024 election on the horizon, At War with Ourselves highlights the crucial importance of competence in foreign policy, and makes plain the need for leaders who possess the character and intellect to guide the United States in a tumultuous world."-- Provided by publisher

The Art of Power

"The most powerful woman in American political history tells the story of her transformation from housewife to House Speaker--how she became a master legislator, a key partner to presidents, and the most visible leader of the Trump resistance."-- Dust jacket flap

All the Worst Humans

"A bridge-burning, riotous memoir by a top PR operative in Washington who exposes the secrets of the $129-billion industry that controls so much of what we see and hear in the media-from a man who used to pull the strings, and who is now pulling back the curtain. After nearly two decades in the Washington PR business, Elwood wants to come clean, by exposing the dark underbelly of the very industry that's made him so successful. The first step is revealing exactly what he's been up to for the past twenty years-and it isn't pretty. Elwood has worked for a murderer's row of clients, including Gaddafi, Assad, and the government of Qatar-namely, the bad guys. In All the Worst Humans, Elwood unveils how the PR business works, and how the truth gets made, spun, and sold to the public-not shying away from the gritty details of his unlikely career. This is a piercing look into the corridors of money, power, politics, and control, all told in Elwood's disarmingly funny and entertaining voice. He recounts a four-day Las Vegas bacchanal with a dictator's son, plotting communications strategies against a terrorist organization in Western Africa, and helping to land a Middle Eastern dictator's wife a glowing profile in Vogue on the same time the Arab Spring broke out. And he reveals all his slippery tricks for seducing journalists in order to create chaos and ultimately cover for politicians, dictators, and spies-the industry-secret tactics that led to his rise as a political PR pro. Along the way, Phil walks the halls of the Capitol, rides in armored cars through Abuja, and watches his client lose his annual income at the roulette table. But as he moved up the ranks, he felt worse and worse about the sleaziness of it all-until Elwood receives a shocking wake-up call from the FBI. This risky game nearly cost Elwood his life and his freedom. Seeing the light, Elwood decides to change his ways, and his clients, and to tell the full truth about who is the worst human."-- Provided by publisher

They Called It Peace

"This new book by historian Lauren Benton offers a novel five-century history of violence in European empires from 1400 to 1900. Her focus is the hidden logic of limited war that drove conflict across many centuries and diverse regions. Never "minor" for the victims, Benton shows how such small wars-described as "border skirmishes" or "peacekeeping operations"-profoundly affected the lived experiences of people in empires around the world. Worse, such conflicts often opened trap doors to atrocities and massacres as entire indigenous communities were seen as particularly legitimate targets of generalized violence. At stake is an understanding of why small wars never remain small and why even now global law seems powerless to contend with them. Imperial small wars were, and remain, the beating heart of the global order as the motivations behind them became embedded both legally and institutionally. The first part of the book discusses raiding and captive-taking and the spread of militarized garrisons that advanced European imperial power. It maps serial small wars as components of conquest and questions the logic of truces, truce-breaking, and massacre. The second part turns to the long nineteenth century. As Europeans inserted themselves into politically complex regions, trading companies and settlers secured control over limited territories and relied on networks of alliance, proxy wars, and collaboration with other empires to fight against indigenous polities and enslaved rebels. In this context, imperial agents began to insist, with increasing force, on Europeans' authority to regulate the conduct of war. In the process, they sharpened characterizations of indigenous fighters as savage. Global militarization in the Seven Years War and the Napoleonic Wars further altered these routines and established a "new global regime of armed peace" in which Europe claimed a right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world. Finally, Benton makes the case that the legacy of violence from the imperial era lingers on until today, resulting in global tolerance for the kind of endless conflict we have witnessed during the War on Terror." -- Provided by publisher

There Are Rivers in the Sky

This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives -- all connected by a single drop of water. In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh. In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur's only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur's world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains. In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy city of Lalish in Iraq. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people. In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage. Zaleekhah foresees a life drained of all love and meaning -- until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything. A dazzling feat of storytelling from one of the greatest writers of our time, Elif Shafak's There are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel that spans centuries, continents and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops.

Playing with Reality

"A wide-ranging intellectual history that reveals how important games have been to human progress, and what's at stake when we forget what games we're really playing. We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. Games are an essential aspect of humanity and a powerful tool for modeling reality. They're also a lot of fun. But games can be dangerous, especially when we mistake the model worlds of games for reality itself and let gamification co-opt human decision making. Playing with Reality explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, political science, evolutionary biology, the development of computers and AI, cutting-edge neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows how intertwined games have been with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation-yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology design. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. In this revelatory new work, Clancy makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature and our actions."-- Provided by publisher

On the Edge

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise, the definitive guide to our era of risk--and the players raising the stakes. In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape--and dominate--so much of modern life. These professional risk takers--poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors--can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset--including the flaws in their thinking--is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers."-- Provided by publisher

A Life in Letters

"A Life in Letters is an English translation of philosopher Simone Weil's letters to her parents and brother, mathematician André Weil. The letters, pulled from the original French correspondence, provide a road map to Weil's life and an unparalleled view into Weil's work and her relationship with the three people who had the greatest impact on her."-- Provided by publisher

I Just Keep Talking

"Throughout her prolific writing career, Nell Painter has published works on such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Malcolm X. Her unique vantage on American history pushes the boundaries of personal narrative and academic authorship. Led by an unbridled curiosity for her subjects, Painter asks readers to reconsider ideas of race, politics, and identity. I Just Keep Talking assembles her writing for the first time into a single volume, displaying the breadth and depth of Painter's decades-long historical inquiry and the evolution of Black political thought." -- Dust jacket flap

The Hollow Parties

"A major history of America's political parties from the founding to our embittered present. America's political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. The Hollow Parties takes readers from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Today's parties, at once overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the Founding. Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld paint unforgettable portraits of figures such as Martin Van Buren, whose pioneering Democrats invented the machinery of the mass political party, and Abraham Lincoln and other heroic Republicans of that party's first generation who stood up to the Slave Power. And they show how today's fractious party politics arose from the ashes of the New Deal order in the 1970s. Activists in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention transformed presidential nominations but failed to lay the foundations for robust, movement-driven parties. Instead, modern American conservatism hollowed out the party system, deeming it a mere instrument for power. Party hollowness lies at the heart of our democratic discontents. With historical sweep and political acuity, The Hollow Parties offers powerful answers to pressing questions about how the nation's parties became so dysfunctional -- and how they might yet realize their promise." -- Jacket flap

Hitler's
People

"Through a connected set of biographical portraits of Nazi leaders and followers that tracks power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime's leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question: How does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil? Richard J. Evans, author of the acclaimed Third Reich Trilogy and over a dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler's People he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement--namely, the lives of its important and representative figures. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Hitler's People forms a typological framework of German society under Nazi rule, from the top down. With a novelist's eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal characteristics and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies--such as Goebbels, the regime's propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust's chief architect--to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten, such as the schoolteacher Julius Streicher or the actress and film director Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler's People lays bare the characters whose choices caused the deaths of millions. Nearly a century after Hitler's rise, the leading nations of the west are once again being torn apart by an untamed will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous individuals as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of agency and complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility--and even between pathological evil and rational choice--are never easily drawn."-- Provided by publisher

Grown Women

"A novel about four generations of Black women contending with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves."-- Provided by publisher

Fierce Desires

"The first sweeping history of sex and sexuality in America since John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman's classic work, Intimate Matters, Rebecca L. Davis's Fierce Desires presents a story of dramatic and often surprising change. Davis's absorbing narrative takes us across four hundred years, from two-spirit people among the Pueblo Indians in the seventeenth century to the gay rights activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya in the twentieth. At every step, she documents the existence of gender nonconformity, queer love, and abortion--facts of sexual life deemed by the Right to be very recent inventions. At the same time, Davis argues that Americans shifted from understanding sexual behaviors as meaningful but secondary reflections of otherwise nonsexual personal qualities to understanding sexuality as a fundamental aspect of the human condition, essential to what makes a person who they are. Creating a new genealogy of sexual pioneers, Davis writes back into history people and ideas that have been forgotten, ignored, or intentionally suppressed."-- Goodreads

Colored Television

"A brilliant dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity-industrial complex Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she, her painter husband, Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend's luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane's sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her "mulatto War and Peace," she'll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don't work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with a hot young producer with a seven-figure deal to create "diverse content" for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a "real writer" to create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy ever to hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane--until they go terribly wrong"-- Provided by publisher

The Bookshop

"An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations. Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost. Evan Friss's history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, catalogs, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many--not just as a merchant, but as a gathering place for likeminded people who cherish books. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin's first bookstore in Philadelphia, and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago's Marshall Field & Co., Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries-including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field's in 1944. The Bookshop is a book every bookstore will want to carry, as there has never been a more affectionate and engaging celebration of this beloved institution."-- Provided by publisher

Black Butterflies

"A timeless story of strife and hope set during the conflict in the Balkans in the early '90s--a searing debut novel about a woman who faces the war on her doorstep with courage, fierceness, and an unshakable belief in the power of art. Sarajevo, spring 1992. Each night, nationalist gangs erect makeshift barricades, splitting the city into ethnic enclaves. Each morning, the people who live there--whether Muslim, Croat, or Serb--push the barriers aside. When violence erupts and becomes, finally, unavoidable, Zora, an artist and teacher, sends her husband and elderly mother to safety in England. She stays behind, reluctant to believe that hostilities will last more than a few weeks. As the city falls under siege, everything she loves about her home is laid to waste, black ashes floating over the rooftops. Yet Zora and her friends find ways to rebuild themselves, over and over. Told with breathtaking immediacy, this is a story of disintegration, resilience, and hope--a stirring debut from a commanding new voice."-- Provided by publisher

The Best American Poetry 2024

"The Best American Poetry series has been "one of the mainstays of the poetry publication world" (Academy of American Poets) since 1988. Each volume presents a curated selection of the year's most brilliant, striking, and innovative poems, with comments from the poets themselves offering unique insight into their work. Here, guest editor Mary Jo Salter, whose own poems display a sublime wit "driven by a compulsion to confront the inexplicable" (James Longenbach), has picked seventy-five poems that capture the dynamism of American poetry today. The series and guest editors contribute valuable introductory essays that assess the current state of American poetry, and this year's edition is certain to capture the attention of both Best American Poetry loyalists and newcomers to the most important poetry anthology of our time." -- page 4 of cover

The Best Short Stories 2024

"Contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Amor Towles has curated an exhilarating assemblage of stories by an international array of talented writers. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Towles, fascinating observations from the winning writers on what inspired their work, and an extensive and useful directory of magazines and literary websites that publish short fiction."-- Page 4 of cover

The Secret Life of the Universe

"One of the world's leading astrobiologists takes us on an awe-inspiring journey across the cosmos to investigate some of humanity's most profound questions: Are we alone in the universe? And, how did life on Earth begin? We are living in a golden age in astronomy and in the search for life the universe. Over the last few decades, space exploration has shown that not only are there habitable environments within our solar system, but there are millions of exoplanets within our galaxy that could support life. We are on the cusp of breakthroughs that will revolutionize our understanding of our place in the cosmos in. Yet a profound question remains: Are we alone in the universe? The Secret Life of the Universe is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the search for life, and a dazzling introduction to the latest discoveries. This is an exhilarating journey for anyone who has ever looked up at the stars and wondered what might be out there."-- Provided by publisher