ODY New Books Collection

Analog Days

"Acclaimed translator Damion Searls's exuberant debut novella navigates the bittersweet tug-of-war between nostalgia and living life meaningfully in a world buzzing with constant connection and information overload. Analog Days is a snapshot of a circle of friends living through the sorrows and joys of a particular inflection point in history. Amid the ever-present news cycles, watching the world shift around them, they fall back on film and friendship and art as the last bastions of meaning in their fragmented lives. Moving from coffee shops to bars, from New York City to San Francisco, Analog Days immerses us in the individual lives set adrift among the pivotal events of our recent history." -- Provided by publisher

All Is Calmish

"Merry and bright? During the holidays, many of us are anything but. From psychotherapist Niro Feliciano, author of This Book Won't Make You Happy and frequent contributor to the TODAY Show, comes the book that will help you stop faking festive feelings and start finding daily strategies for wholeness and well-being."-- Provided by publisher

Discordance

The speed of the expansion of the universe is governed by the Hubble constant. Discordance tells of its troubled 100-year history, from tentative steps to measure the distances of nearby stars to orbiting telescopes peering into the far reaches of space. But recent results hint at more trouble ahead: the Hubble tension. The story is not over yet.

The Finest Hotel in Kabul

This book presents a historical and social portrait of Afghanistan through the lens of Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel, from its opening in 1969 to the present. Once a symbol of national modernization, the hotel has since endured decades of conflict, political upheaval, and reconstruction. Drawing on long-term reporting and interviews with staff and guests, journalist Lyse Doucet uses the hotel as a focal point to examine the country's shifting political landscape and the everyday experiences of Afghans across generations. Through the stories of individuals connected to the hotel, the work offers insight into contemporary Afghan history and life in Kabul.

Writers Revealed

"Writers Revealed tells the stories of the best-loved writers in English literature, investigating their enduring appeal from the sixteenth century to today through the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the British Library. Intimate handwritten manuscripts, letters and notebooks as well as rare first editions of books from the British Library are paired with the National Portrait Gallery's outstanding collection of author portraits. From William Shakespeare to Zadie Smith, Writers Revealed features over 70 poets, novelists and academics. Each short profile - which provides insight into the writers' inspirations, struggles, and working practices - is beautifully illustrated with a portrait and manuscript. Readers will enjoy in-depth encounters with some of the world's most famous writers, including James Joyce, Bernardine Evaristo, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Jane Austen, Benjamin Zephaniah, and Angela Carter, and discover just what it is that makes these individuals so endlessly compelling."-- Publisher's description

When Caesar Was King

When Caesar Was King tells the story of Sid Caesar, television's first true star and the genius behind Your Show of Shows. David Margolick traces Caesar's meteoric rise, his struggles behind the scenes, and his eventual fall from the airwaves--while highlighting his lasting influence on comedy through protégés like Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, and Neil Simon

An Unholy Traffic

"During the American Civil War, Confederates bought and sold thousands of men, women, and children. A robust and surviving slave trade, the extension of a traffic that had emerged to support the rise of the Cotton Kingdom, enabled them to do so. Even though the war destroyed the economy that had long underpinned American slavery, Confederates nevertheless traded people from Fort Sumter to Appomattox. Some took advantage of the enduring slave trade to shape their experiences of the war, using their ability to force people into motion to mobilize for the conflict or to weather the numerous crises it created on the homefront. Others speculated wildly, investing in the enslaved during the war to ward off inflation and to buy shares in the slaveholding future for which they fought. Still others traded people to ward off the progress of emancipation. For those held in slavery, meanwhile, the surviving slave trade dramatically shaped the ways in which they encountered freedom, preventing many from achieving it by yanking them back into bondage even as it inspired others to take the risk of escaping. The Civil War slave trade thus profoundly shaped the experience of the conflict for all residents of the American South. Regardless of the choices they made--to buy or to sell people, to risk sale or to flee from it--the effects of the slave trade reverberated throughout the conflict and produced legacies that endured long after the guns fell silent."-- Provided by publisher

Unabridged

"Words are the currency of culture - and never more than today. From selfie to doomscrolling to rizz, our hyper-connected digital world coins and spreads new words with lightning speed and locks them into mainstream consciousness with unprecedented influence. Journalist and bestselling author Stefan Fatsis embedded as a lexicographer-in-training at America's most famous dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, to learn how words get into the dictionary, where they come from, who decides what they mean, and how we write and think about them. In so doing, as he recounts in Unabridged, he discovered the history and fascinating subculture of the dictionary and of those who curate and revere "one of the most basic features of our collective humanity." Fatsis reveals the little-known story of how the brothers George and Charles Merriam acquired Noah Webster's original American dictionary and reshaped the business of language forever. Merriam-Webster became America's most successful and enduring compendium of words, withstanding intense competition and cultural controversies - only to be threatened by the power of Google and artificial intelligence today. Delving into Merriam's legendary archives and parsing its arcane rules, Fatsis learns the painstaking precision required for writing good definitions. He examines how the dictionary has handled the most explosive slurs and the revolutionary change in pronouns. He votes on the annual Word of the Year, travels to the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, and visits the world's greatest private dictionary collection in a Greenwich Village apartment stuffed with more than 20,000 books. Fatsis demonstrates how words are weaponized in our polarized political culture-from liberal to woke to DEI-and, in a time of insurrections and pandemics, how they can be a literal matter of life and death. Along the way, he manages to write a few definitions that crack the code and are enshrined in the pixelated dictionary." -- Provided by publisher

Town & Country

"The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city's second homeowners, but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions. Diane Riley, Chip's wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes--including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. Their elder son, Joe, is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their younger son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle of Paul's circle. Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing a loved one to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul's readiness for office. And within their growing fraternity of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region's complexity as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks's exclusive crew"-- Provided by publisher

This Is for Everyone

In this memoir, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, recounts the development and impact of his creation. The book explores the origins of the web, its transformative role in global communication and collaboration, and the challenges it now faces, including threats to privacy, truth, and public discourse. Combining personal narrative with reflections on technology and society, Berners-Lee offers insights into the future of digital life and advocates for a more ethical and inclusive web.

The Third Love

"Having married her childhood sweetheart, Riko now finds herself trapped in a relationship soured by infidelity. One day, she runs into her old friend Mr. Takaoka, who offers friendship, love, and an unusual escape: he teaches her the trick of living inside her dreams. Now, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the seventeenth century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages. As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a twenty-first-century woman-as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover-and to ask herself whether, after loving her husband and loving Mr. Takaoka, she is ready for her third great love." -- Provided by publisher

Terry Dactyl

"From iconic author and activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore comes a breathless search for intimacy and connection, from club culture to the art world, from the AIDS crisis to COVID-19. Terry Dactyl has lived many lives. Raised by boisterous lesbian mothers in Seattle, she comes of age as a trans girl in the 1980s in a world of dancing queens and late-night house parties just as the AIDS crisis ravages their world. After moving to New York City, Terry finds a new family among gender-bending club kids bonded by pageantry and drugs, fiercely loyal and unapologetic. She lands a job at a Soho gallery, where, after partying all night, she spends her days bringing club culture to the elite art world. Twenty years later, in a panic during the COVID-19 lockdown, Terry returns to a Seattle stifled by gentrification and pandemic isolation until resistance erupts following the murder of George Floyd, and her search for community ignites once again. In propulsive, intoxicating prose, Terry Dactyl traces an extraordinary journey from adolescence to adulthood, delivering a vital portrait of queer identity in all its peril and possibility."-- Provided by publisher

Some Bright Nowhere

"Eliot and his wife Claire have been happily married for nearly four decades. They've raised two children in their sleepy Connecticut town and have weathered the inevitable ups and downs of a long life spent together. But eight years after Claire was diagnosed with cancer, the end is near, and it's time to gather loved ones and prepare for the inevitable. Over the years of Claire's illness, Eliot has willingly--lovingly--shifted into the role of caregiver, appreciating the intimacy and tenderness that comes with a role even more layered and complex than the one he performed as a devoted husband. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last days and weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling. In a moment, his carefully constructed world is shattered."-- Provided by publisher

Simply More

"Cynthia Erivo learned the music to Wicked a decade before she needed it, not knowing those same lyrics would change her life. Now she has performed those songs on the world stage, showing us there is always time to keep discovering ourselves - and to illustrate that it's often the parts of ourselves we are told to bury that make us shine. In a series of powerful, personal vignettes, Cynthia reflects on the ways she has grown as an actor and human and the practices she's learned over years of performing and reminds us all we are capable of so much more than we think." -- Provided by publisher

Queen Esther

"Esther Nacht is born in Vienna in 1905. Her father dies on board the ship to Portland, Maine; her mother is murdered by anti-Semites in Portland. Dr. Larch knows it won't be easy to find a Jewish family to adopt Esther; in fact, he won't find any family who'll adopt her. When Esther is fourteen, soon to be a ward of the state, Dr. Larch meets the Winslows, a philanthropic New England family with a history of providing foster care for unadopted orphans. The Winslows aren't Jewish, but they despise anti-Semitism. Esther's gratitude for the Winslows is unending; even as she retraces her roots back to Vienna, she never stops loving and protecting the Winslows. In the final chapter, set in Jerusalem in 1981, Esther Nacht is seventy-six." -- Provided by publisher

The Predicament

"From the internationally bestselling author, a thrilling novel starring the travel writer turned reluctant spy Gabriel Dax, a masterful tale of loyalty, obsession, and spy craft. 1963, Guatemala. The country is in turmoil, and the CIA is not pleased that a charismatic, left-wing ex-priest and trade union leader is poised to win the upcoming presidential election. Amid this uncertainty, Gabriel Dax arrives on orders from his MI6 handler Faith Green, who has tasked him with assessing the situation undercover while posing as a reporter. Upon arrival, Gabriel grows increasingly suspicious that the genial local CIA agent, Frank Sartorius, is more untrustworthy than he appears. Soon, a political assassination with suspicions of Mafia involvement leads to riots, and Dax escapes back to Europe and his normal life. But when Green compels him to investigate shady characters in West Berlin ahead of the arrival of the magnetic young President Kennedy, it becomes clear that an even greater danger is afoot. A gripping novel of politics and spy craft with dramatic twists and turns, The Predicament shows Boyd to be one of our most masterful contemporary storytellers." -- Provided by publisher

Other People's
Fun

"Ruth is alone, unnoticed, and at a loss: her marriage has ended, her daughter is leaving home, and her job is leading nowhere. But luckily Sookie is back in her life-vivid, self-assured Sookie, who never spared the time for Ruth when they were teenagers, but who now seems to want to be friends. But as Ruth is caught up in Sookie's life, she sees that everything is not as Instagrammable as Sookie would have you believe. As the truth about Sookie becomes clearer, so too does the choice Ruth will have to make."-- Provided by publisher

The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus

520 "Christopher Columbus was born Cristoforo Colombo, in the autumn of 1451 in the Mediterranean port city of Genoa, and he died in the Spanish city of Valladolid in May 1506, as don Cristóbal Colón. More than five centuries later, we are still arguing over his life and its significance. Millions if not billions of people have learned his name. Most have some sense of what he did, that it was momentous, a great achievement, an act of primacy. But was his achievement 'great' because he 'discovered America' and thus made possible the hemisphere's 'great' nations? Or was it an apocalyptic catastrophe for tens of millions of Indigenous and African peoples? In The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus, acclaimed historian Matthew Restall, perhaps the leading scholar of the Spanish Empire, presents a new, authoritative biography of Columbus, while at the same time tracing his many afterlives down into our own time. He explores the mysteries, many of them manufactured, that color our understanding of Columbus even in the twenty-first century -- mysteries surrounding Columbus's name, nationality, place of birth, ancestry, education, religion, intellectual vision, moral fiber, sexual proclivities, and current resting place. He shows how Columbus became an iconic American hero in the nineteenth century, and how a parallel hero emerged in the form of the Italian American Columbus. Restall takes us beyond polemic, sifting through the evidence across nations, languages, and five centuries to explore the many questions that make up what he calls 'Columbiana.' He demonstrates that, far from a uniquely talented individual, Columbus was typical of the Iberian and northern Italian men of his day -- a merchant mariner who became an explorer, slave-trader, and conquistador-settler. And Restall challenges the notion, deeply held to this day, that Columbus can be credited or blamed for all that happened after 1492. Whatever one's views of Columbus, Restall's book is the necessary, definitive account. It dispels the myths and gives us Columbus as he was. It shows how he has been distorted in the centuries since his death -- and how we might come to understand him, and his legacies, anew." -- Provided by publisher.

Murder at the Christmas Emporium

In this follow up to The Twelve Days of Murder, a group of Christmas shoppers discover the doors have been locked and that they've been trapped by someone who knows their darkest secrets. It's Christmas Eve at the Emporium, a bespoke gift shop hidden in the depths of London's winding streets, where a select few shoppers are browsing its handcrafted delights. But when they go to leave, they find the doors are locked and it isn't long before they realize this is no innocent mix-up. The shoppers have been trapped here by someone who knows their darkest secrets, someone will stop at nothing until they have all been unwrapped--and there is a gruesome gift waiting in Santa's grotto . . . For those that survive the night, it will be a Christmas to remember.

Metamorphosis

""How many creatures walking on this earth / Have their first being in another form?" the Roman poet Ovid asked two thousand years ago. He could not have known the full extent of the truth: Today, biologists estimate a stunning three-quarters of all animal species on earth undergo some form of metamorphosis. But why do tadpoles transform into frogs, caterpillars into butterflies, elvers into eels, immortal jellyfish from sea sprigs to medusae and back again, growing younger and younger in frigid ocean depths? Why must creatures go through massive destruction and remodeling to become who they are? Tracing a path from Aristotle--who rejected the possibility of metamorphosis--to Darwin to today, historian of science Oren Harman explores that central mystery. Metamorphosis, however, isn't just a biological puzzle: It takes us to the very heart of questions of being and identity, whatever kind of change we may undergo. Metamorphosis is a new classic of natural history: a book that, by unveiling a mystery of nature, causes us to relearn ourselves." -- Provided by publisher