ODY New Books Collection

Never Flinch

"When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to 'kill thirteen innocents and one guilty' in 'an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,' Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women's rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate's message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate's bodyguard--a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness. Featuring a riveting cast of characters both old and new, including world-famous gospel singer Sista Bessie and an unforgettable villain addicted to murder, these twinned narratives converge in a chilling and spectacular conclusion--a feat of storytelling only Stephen King could pull off."-- Provided by publisher

Marketcrafters

"A revelatory and unexpected history of the rise of American capitalism--and an argument that entrepreneurial leaders in government, not the mythical "free market," created the most dynamic economy the world has ever known."-- Provided by publisher

Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg

"One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry. Mayer, older by more than a dozen years, was the business-minded face of the studio, while Thalberg worked closely with the creative corps, especially writers; together they rarely set a foot wrong. And while Mayer initially viewed Thalberg as the son he never had, the two would go from passionate friends to near enemies before Thalberg's shocking death at the age of thirty-seven. In the first joint biography of the two men in fifty years, film critic Kenneth Turan traces their fraught relationship while examining the complicated history of Jewish identity in Hollywood." -- Publisher's description

King of Ashes

"Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama. When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father's car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family-and the family business-together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante's recklessness has placed them all in real danger. Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he's forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills. Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything. Because everything burns."-- Provided by publisher

Hunger like a Thirst

"A witty and lively memoir from food writer and New York Times contributor Besha Rodell, (formerly) one of the world's last anonymous restaurant critics. When Besha Rodell moved from Australia to the United States with her mother at fourteen, she was a foreigner in a new land, missing her friends, her father, and the food she grew up eating. In the years that followed, Rodell began waitressing and discovered the buzz of the restaurant world, immersing herself in the lifestyle and community while struggling with the industry's shortcomings. As she built a family, Rodell realized her dream, though only a handful of women before her had done it: to make a career as a restaurant critic. From the streets of Brooklyn to lush Atlanta to sunny Los Angeles to traveling and eating around the world, and, finally, home to Australia, Rodell takes us on a delicious, raw, and fascinating journey through her life and career and explores the history of criticism and dining and the cultural shifts that have turned us all into food obsessives. Hunger Like a Thirst shares stories of the joys and hardships of Rodell's coming-of-age, the amazing (and sometimes terrible) meals she ate along the way, and the dear friends she made in each restaurant, workplace, and home." -- Publisher

Heart Lamp

A monumental first collection in English from Banu Mushtaq: lawyer, activist, champion of Muslim women, and winner of India's highest literary honors. In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humor, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq's years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women's rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it's in her characters the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India's most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.-- Publisher description

Harmattan Season

"Award-winning author Tochi Onyebuchi's new standalone novel is hard-boiled fantasy noir: Raymond Chandler meets P. Djèlí Clark in a postcolonial West Africa Fortune always left whatever room I walked into, which is why I don't leave my place much these days... Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn't need much-least of all trouble-but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he'd rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds. When a bleeding woman stumbles onto his doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, Bouba reluctantly finds himself enmeshed in the secrets of a city boiling on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the indigenous dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities. As each hardwon clue reveals horrifying new truths, Bouba may have to carve out parts of himself he's long kept hidden, and decide what he's willing to offer next. From the visionary author of Riot Baby and Goliath, Harmattan Season is a gripping fantasy noir in the tradition of Chandler, Hammond, and Christie that will have you by the throat-both dryly funny and unforgettably evocative."-- Provided by publisher

The Deserters

"A filthy and exhausted soldier emerges from the Mediterranean wilderness - he is escaping from an unspecified war, trying to flee incessant violence and find refuge in solitude. Meanwhile, on September 11, 2001, aboard a small cruise ship, a scientific conference takes place to pay tribute to the renowned East German mathematician Paul Heudeber, a committed communist, anti-fascist, and a survivor of Buchenwald."-- Provided by publisher

Death Is Our Business

"In 2014, a well-trained, mysterious band of mercenaries arrived in Ukraine, part of Russia's first attempt to claim the country as its own. Upon ceasefire, the 'Wagner Group' faded back into shadow, only to reemerge in the Middle East, where they'd go toe-to-toe with the U.S., and in Africa, where they'd earn praise for 'tough measures' against insurgencies yet spark outrage for looting, torture, and civilian deaths. As Russia gained a foothold of influence abroad, Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as 'Putin's Chef,' went from caterer to commander to single greatest threat Putin has faced in his over-twenty-year rule. Dually armed with military and strategic prowess, the Wagner Group created a new market in a vast geopolitical landscape increasingly receptive to the promises of private actors. In this trailblazing account of the Group's origins and operations, John Lechner--the only journalist to report across its many warzones--brings us on the ground to witness Wagner partner with fragile nation states, score access to natural resources, oust peacekeeping missions, and cash in on conflicts reframed as Kremlin interests. After rebelling, Prigozhin faced an epic demise--but Wagner lives on, its political, business, and military ventures a pillar of Russian operations the world over. Featuring exclusive interviews with over thirty Wagner Group members, Death Is Our Business is the terrifying true tale of the renegade militia that proved global instability is nothing if not an opportunity." -- Page 2 of dust jacket

Apocalypse

"A new view on the human tradition of apocalypse, from the rise of Homo sapiens to the climate instability of our present, and a look at how the new tools of archaeology reveal these upheavals as moments that created the world we live in, and continue to offer surprising opportunities for radical change."-- Provided by publisher

Open, Heaven

"Set in a remote village in the north of England, Open, Heaven unfolds over the course of one year in which two teenage boys meet and transform each other’s lives. James—a sheltered, shy sixteen-year-old—is alone in his newly discovered sexuality, full of an unruly desire but entirely inexperienced. As he is beginning to understand himself and his longings, he also realizes how his feelings threaten to separate him from his family and the rural community he has grown up in. He dreams of another life, fantasizing about what lies beyond the village’s leaf-ribboned boundaries, beyond his reach: autonomy, tenderness, sex. Then, in the autumn of 2002, he meets Luke, a slightly older boy, handsome, unkempt, who comes with a reputation for danger. Abandoned by his parents—his father imprisoned, and his mother having moved to France for another man—Luke has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle on their farm just outside the village. James is immediately drawn to him 'like the pull a fire makes on the air, dragging things into it and blazing them into its hot, white centre,' drawn to this boy who is beautiful and impulsive, charismatic, troubled. But underneath Luke’s bravado is a deep wound—a longing for the love of his father and for the stability of family life." -- Penguin Random House

The Snares

"In the waning months of George W. Bush's presidency, Neel Chima, a former Naval officer and federal prosecutor, is recruited to join a new federal intelligence agency-one with greater-than-usual powers and fewer-than-usual restrictions. Neel soon finds himself intimately involved in the surveillance of domestic terrorism suspects and the selection of foreigners for drone assassination-men who often look just like his Sikh family members. As both his ambitions and moral qualms mount, he is drawn further and further away from his wife and two young daughters. When he makes a critical mistake at work, he is left vulnerable to shadowy figures in the intelligence world who seek to use him in their own, still more radical counterterrorism missions. If he agrees, the world of power will open up even wider to him. If he doesn't . . "-- Provided by publisher

Who Knew

"Growing up in Beverly Hills, Diller was neglected by his parents, abused by his brother, and overwhelmed by insecurity. Diller began his career in the mailroom of the William Morris Agency and had one of the most extraordinary ascents in show business history, inventing the TV Movie of the Week for ABC at age twenty-seven, becoming CEO of Paramount Pictures at age thirty-two, and launching the Fox TV network at age forty-four. . . . Diller shares his provocative and at times counterintuitive insights about advancing in a company; becoming a manager and a leader; and the value of confrontation. He describes his relentless quest for good ideas along with what he learned from the bad ones. For the first time, Diller also tells the story of his unconventional and very private personal life, describing relationships with men and the woman he calls his 'unique and complete love,' designer Diane von Furstenberg. Diller writes, 'I would have secrets, but I would tell no lies.'"--Excerpted from Inside jacket flap

Searches

"From the author of The Immortal King Rao, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a personal and provocative exploration of how technology companies have reshaped human language, and, if we let them, could steal it from us. When it was released to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT awakened the world to a secretive project: teaching A.I.-powered machines to write and talk like human beings. Its creators had a sweeping ambition-to get machines to communicate for us. But if this came to pass, would it be liberation or subjugation? Vauhini Vara, an award-winning tech journalist and editor, had long been grappling with this question. In 2021, she used a predecessor of ChatGPT to write about her sister's death, resulting in an essay that was both more moving and more disturbing than she could have imagined. It quickly went viral. The experience, revealing both the appeal and the danger of corporate-owned language machines, forced Vara to interrogate how technology has changed how she uses language, from discovering online chat rooms as a preteen, to using social media as the Wall Street Journal's first Facebook reporter, to testing early versions of ChatGPT-all while adding to the trove of human-created material that Big Tech exploits. Interspersed throughout this investigation are her own Google searches, Amazon reviews, and the other raw material of Internet life-including the viral A.I. experiment that started it all. Searches illuminates Big Tech's incursion into our lives, while proposing that by harnessing the collective imagination that taught us to communicate in the first place, we might invent a nobler, freer relationship with our machines and, ultimately, with one another."-- Provided by publisher

The Proof of My Innocence

"Post-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow's Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He's been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that's been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that's finally poised to put their plans into action. But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top. As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?"-- Provided by vendor

1861

"1861: The Lost Peace is the story of President Lincoln's far-reaching, difficult, and most courageous decision, a time when the country wrestled with deep moral questions of epic proportions. Through Jay Winik's singular reporting and storytelling, readers will learn about the extraordinary Washington Peace Conference at the Willard Hotel to avert cataclysmic war. They will observe the irascible and farsighted Senator JJ Crittenden, the tireless moderate seeking a middle way to peace. Lincoln himself called Crittenden "a great man" even as Lincoln jousted with him. They'll be inside and among Lincoln's cabinet--the finest in history--which rivaled the executive in its authority, a fact too often forgotten, and they will see a parade of statesmen frenetically grasping for peace rather than the spectacle of the young nation slowly choking in its own blood. A perfect read for history buffs, with timely overtones to our current political climate."-- Provided by publisher

Valley of Forgetting

"The riveting account of a community from the remote mountains of Colombia whose rare and fatal genetic mutation is unlocking the secrets of Alzheimer's disease. In the 1980s, a neurologist named Francisco Lopera traveled on horseback into the mountains seeking families with symptoms of dementia. For centuries, residents of certain villages near Medellín had suffered memory loss as they reached middle age, going on to die in their fifties. Lopera discovered that a unique genetic mutation was causing their rare hereditary form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. Over the next forty years of working with the "paisa mutation" kindred, he went on to build a world-class research program in a region beset by violence and poverty. In Valley of Forgetting, Jennie Erin Smith brings readers into the clinic, the laboratories, and the Medellín trial center where Lopera's patients receive an experimental drug to see if Alzheimer's can be averted. She chronicles the lives of people who care for sick parents, spouses, and siblings, all while struggling to keep their own dreams afloat. These Colombian families have donated hundreds of their loved ones' brains to science and subjected themselves to invasive testing to help uncover how Alzheimer's develops and whether it can be stopped. Findings from this unprecedented effort could hold the key to understanding and treating the disease, though it is unclear what, if anything, the families will receive in return. Smith's immersive storytelling brings this complex drama to life, inviting readers on a scientific journey that is as deeply moving as it is engrossing."-- Provided by publisher

Turning to Birds

"Most people don't really know birds--or rather, they aren't aware of them. Lili Taylor used to be one of those people. She knew birds existed. She thought about them, maybe even more than the average person. But she didn't know them. And then something happened. During a break from her work as an actor, Lili sought silence and instead found the bustling, symphonic world of birds that had always existed around her. Since then, she has kept a keen eye pressed to her binoculars in search of vivid stories that elevate the everyday, if only one pays attention. Through a series of beautifully crafted essays, Taylor shares her intimate encounters with the birds that have captured her heart and imagination--from tracking flitting Zorros through oak trees to spotting majestic Blue Jays perched on a Manhattan fire escape; from the exhilaration of chasing a migratory flock up the Empire State Building to the quiet joy of observing a nest of hatchlings in her own backyard. Through simply paying attention to birds, Lili has been shown a parallel world that is wider and deeper, one of constant change and movement, full of life and the will to survive. This book is part-memoir, part-love letter to the beauty and resilience of the natural world--a reminder of the profound connections that exist between all living things. Taylor's lyrical prose and thoughtful meditations on both the art we make and the art we discover around us create a sense of intimacy and wonder, inviting readers to see the world through new eyes and to find joy in the most unexpected places"-- Provided by publisher

Switch

During the latter phases of Covid, Isobel Williams completed her celebrated translations of the polyamorous ancient Roman poet Catullus. The poems that proved impossible when she prepared Shibari Carmina, published to acclaim in 2021, finally surrendered to her. 'Translating Catullus has been, for me, like cage fighting with two opponents, not just A Top Poet, but the schoolgirl I was, trained to show the examiner that she knew what each word meant.' The conflict was resolved by a third component, the context of shibari, a Japanese form of rope bondage with its own knotty terminology. Due to its severe restraints Catullus came alive in all his 'tormented intelligence and romantic versatility'. Critics called the work 'explosive and impactful', 'one of the most exciting translation volumes of recent years', 'lyrical, funny, engaging, and insightful', 'a bracingly foul, but also a shrewd and funny Catullus' - 'Isobel Williams' naughty translation puts the Roman poet in a bondage dungeon.' He will never be quite the same again. Switch joins Carcanet's Classics series. Like its incomplete predecessor it is illustrated with bondage drawings by the translator herself. She adds a 'who shagged whom' chart so readers can move confidently from one engagement to the next.

The Stalker

"Robert Doughten Savile, aka "Doughty," is the son of a once-wealthy, now hard-up family from Darien, Connecticut. Doughty lives in a perpetual cloud of delusion, convinced of his own genius and certain that the wealth and high status that he believes to be his birthright are just around the corner. While he has little capacity to accurately assess his own abilities or prospects, he cruises through life on the sheer force of his own sense of entitlement, dropping out of college and landing in the early '90s in New York City, a place brimming with both prosperity and desperation. He cons his way from a bed at the YMCA into the posh Soho loft of a middle-aged book editor, while pursuing a young bartender, whom he also abuses and gaslights. He spins elaborate tales about his imaginary high-power job in real estate while, in reality, he passes his days watching George Carlin specials on VHS, smoking crack in Tompkins Square Park, and engaging in occasional sex work in the restrooms of Grand Central Station. His many failures, however, only serve to sharpen his one true gift: Doughty is a skilled predator, and the damage he inflicts on the women around him is real and remorseless. Fans of true crime podcasts about con men like Dirty John and Who the Hell Is Hamish? will revel in this novel and its portrait of the sociopath as a young loser. As shocking as it is illuminating, The Stalker confirms Paula Bomer as a contemporary master of the pitch-black comic novel."-- Provided by publisher