ODY New Books Collection

The Devotional Qurʼan

"A beautifully curated and translated collection of the Qur'anic surahs and verses that are most cherished and memorized by Muslims the world over."-- Provided by publisher

Cold Kitchen

"Over the course of a year, Eden charts a course from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. From the magic of cloudberries to the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland, and from capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain to late-night baking as a route back to Ukraine, Cold Kitchen celetrates the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world. Caroline invites you to join her in this sincere and incredibly personal memoir with food at its heart." -- Dust jacket flap

Code Noir

"Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction combines immense literary and political force. Its departs from the infamous real-life Code Noir, a set of historical decrees passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions - vivid, unforgettable, multi-layer fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past. Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, this inventive, shape-shifting braid of stories exists far beyond the enclosures of official decrees. This is a timely, daring, virtuosic book by a young literary star. The stories are accompanied by fifty-nine black-and-white drawings - one at the start of each fiction - by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson."-- Provided by publisher

Women and the Piano

"Women are an essential part of the history of the piano--but how many women pianists can you name? Throughout most of the piano's history, women pianists lacked access to formal training and were excluded from male-dominated performance spaces. Even the modern piano's keys were designed without consideration of women's typically smaller hands. Yet despite their music being largely confined to the domestic sphere, women continued to play, perform, and compose on their own terms. Celebrated pianist and author Susan Tomes traces fifty such women across the piano's history. Including now-famous names such as Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, Tomes also highlights overlooked women: from Hélène de Montgeroult, whose playing saved her life during the French Revolution, to Leopoldine Wittgenstein, influential Viennese salonnière, and Hazel Scott, the first Black performer in the United States to have a nationally syndicated TV show. From Maria Szymanowska to Nina Simone, and including interviews with women performing today, this is a much-needed corrective to our understanding of the piano--and a timely testament to women's musical lives."-- Publisher's website

A Town without Time

For over six decades, Gay Talese has told New York stories. They are the stories of daring bridge builders, disappearing gangsters, intrepid Vogue editors, unassuming doormen who've seen too much. They are set in the star-studded salons of George Plimpton's apartment, in the tense newsroom of a still burgeoning New York Times, in an electric studio session with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga recording their debut. With the wit, elegance, and depth of insight that has long characterized his work, Talese's New York reporting showcases a master of the form at his finest, making intelligible the city's vibrant beating pulse, capturing the charming, the eccentric, and the overlooked. Whether prowling the night streets to discover the social hierarchy of alley cats or uncovering the triumph and terror of building the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, or plunging into the hidden, sordid world of a recently blown-up apartment building, Talese excavates the city around him with a reporter's eye and an artist's flair, crafting delightful, profound, indelible portraits of the people who live there. Spanning the 1950s to today, the fourteen pieces in this collection are a time capsule of what New York once was and still is. Talese proves time and time again that, even as the city changes, his view of it remains as timeless as ever.-- Provided by publisher

Steven Weinberg

"Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg shares his candid thoughts on theoretical physics and cosmology, along with anecdotes and recollections from his long career. Physicists, historians of science and interested readers will find the presentation engaging and often witty, as Weinberg reflects on his life in physics."-- Provided by publisher

A Myriad of Tongues

"We tend to assume that all languages categorize ideas and objects similarly, reflecting our common human experience. But this isn't the case. When we look closely, we find that many basic concepts are not universal, and that speakers of different languages literally see and think about the world differently. Caleb Everett takes readers around the globe, explaining what linguistic diversity tells us about human culture, overturning conventional wisdom along the way. For instance, though it may seem that everybody refers to time in spatial terms -- in English, for example, we speak of time "passing us by" -- speakers of the Amazonian language Tupi Kawahib never do. In fact, Tupi Kawahib has no word for "time" at all. And while it has long been understood that languages categorize colors based on those that speakers regularly encounter, evidence suggest that the color words we have at our disposal affect how we discriminate colors themselves: a rose may not appear as rosy by any other name. What's more, the terms available to us even determine the range of smells we can identify. European languages tend to have just a few abstract odor words, like "floral" or "stinky," whereas Indigenous languages often have well over a dozen. Why do some cultures talk anthropocentrically about things being to one's "left" or "right," while others use geocentric words like "east" and "west"? What is the connection between what we eat and the sounds we make? A Myriad of Tongues answers these and other questions, yielding profound insights into the fundamentals of human communication and experience." -- Jacket flap

Mona Acts Out

"Celebrated stage actress Mona Zahid wakes up on Thanksgiving morning to the clamor of guests packed into her Manhattan apartment and to a wave of dread: her in-laws are lurking on the other side of the bedroom door; she's still fighting with her husband; and in just a few weeks she will begin rehearsals as Shakespeare's Cleopatra, the hardest role in theater. In an impulsive burst, Mona bounds out the door with the family dog in tow ("I forgot the parsley!" is her lame excuse) to find her estranged mentor, Milton Katz, who was recently forced out of the legendary theater company he founded amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Mona's escape turns into an overnight adventure that brings her face-to-face with her past, with her creative power and its limitations, and ultimately, with all the people she has ever loved. Beguilingly approachable and intricately constructed, at once funny and sad and wise, Mona Acts Out is a novel about acting and telling the truth, about how we play roles to get through our days, and how the great roles teach us how to live." -- Amazon

The Lives of Spiders

"A beautifully illustrated guide to the natural history and breathtaking diversity of spiders around the world." -- Publisher's description

Land Power

"For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. In Land Power, political scientist Michael Albertus shows that who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment. Modern history has been defined by land reallocation on a massive scale. From the 1500s on, European colonial powers and new nation-states shifted indigenous lands into the hands of settlers. The 1900s brought new waves of land appropriation, from Soviet and Maoist collectivization to initiatives turning large estates over to family farmers. The shuffle continues today as governments vie for power and prosperity by choosing who should get land. Drawing on a career's worth of original research and on-the-ground fieldwork, Albertus shows that choices about who owns the land have locked in sexism, racism, and climate crisis-and that what we do with the land today can change our collective fate. Global in scope, Land Power argues that saving civilization must begin with the earth under our feet."-- Provided by publisher

The Killing Fields of East New York

"A compulsively readable hybrid of true crime and investigative journalism, The Killing Fields of East New York reveals how white-collar crime reduced a prospering neighborhood to abandoned buildings and empty lots. Following the dual threads of the hunt for the network of criminals behind the first subprime mortgage scandal and the ensuing downfall of East New York, Stacy Horn weaves a compelling narrative of government failure, a desperate community, and ultimately the largest series of mortgage fraud prosecutions in American history. The Killing Fields of East New York deftly demonstrates how different types of crime are profoundly entangled, and how the crimes committed in nice suits and corner offices are just as destructive as those committed on the street."-- Provided by publisher

Helen of Troy, 1993

Part myth retelling, part character study, this debut poetry collection reimagines the mythic beauty from Homer's "Iliad" as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee. Zoccola explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of a small town: she marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and begins an affair that throws her life into chaos, but she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices.

The Art of Uncertainty

"In lucid, lively prose, Spiegelhalter guides us through the principles of probability, illustrating how they can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to sports to climate change forecasts. He demonstrates how taking a mathematical approach to phenomena we might otherwise attribute to fate or luck can help us sort hidden patterns from mere coincidences, better evaluate cause and effect, and predict what's likely to happen in the future. Along the way, we learn how a misinterpretation of a probability contributed to the infamous Bay of Pigs fiasco, why a ship twice the size of the Titanic sank without a trace, and why we can be so confident that no two properly shuffled decks of cards have ever been in the same order. Sparkling with wit and fascinating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty while also retaining the humility to admit what we don't, or simply cannot, know."-- Provided by publisher

After Lives

A collection of six essays blends memoir and biography, exploring the author's life and passion for uncovering historical mysteries, featuring diverse figures such as a Buddhist hermit and a Black Power martyr.

What Happened to the McCrays?

"When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn't expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning the people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends--not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone. The longer he's home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When he's presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that's only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other."-- Dust jacket flap

This Beautiful, Ridiculous City

"On her first night in New York City, Kay Sohini sits on the tarmac of JFK Airport making an inventory of everything she's left behind in India: her family, friends, home, and gaslighting ex-boyfriend. In the wake of that untethering she realizes two things: she's finally made it to the city of her literary heroes -- Kerouac, Plath, Bechdel -- and the trauma she's endured has created gaping holes in her memory. As Kay begins the work of piecing herself back together she discovers the deep sense of belonging that can only be found on the streets of New York City. In the process she falls beautifully, ridiculously in love with the bustling landscape, and realizes that the places we love do not always love us back but can still somehow save us in weird, unexpected ways. At once heartbreaking and uplifting, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City explores the relationship between trauma and truth, displacement and belonging, and what it means to forge a life of one's own."-- Publisher's description

Soft Core

"A stripper's madcap search for her missing ex-boyfriend takes her over the edge in this whip-smart, wildly funny novel about love, sex, work, and sex work."-- Provided by publisher

The Sinners All Bow

"On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn, four months pregnant, after a disgraceful liaison with a charismatic Methodist minister, Reverend Ephraim Avery. Some (Avery's lawyers) claimed her death was suicide . . . but others weren't so sure. Determined to uncover the real story, intrepid Victorian writer Catharine Williams threw herself into the investigation and wrote what many claim is the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The case and Williams' book became a sensation--one that divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. But the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell's death. Until now. In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to 19th century small town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements-such as "forensic knot analysis" to determine cause of death, the prosecutor's notes from 1833, and criminal profiling which was invented 55 years later with Jack the Ripper--Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams' research to find the truth. Along the way she also examines how society decides who is the "right kind" of crime victim and how America's long history of religious evangelism may have clouded the facts both in the 1830s and today. Ultimately, The Sinners All Bow brings justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given."-- Provided by publisher

New and Collected Hell

"A pathbreaking work from a poet who "shows us how we need new music and new ears and eyes" (New York Journal of Books)-McCrae takes up and turns on its head the mantle of Dante in this contemporary vision of Hell."-- Provided by publisher

Lunar Love

"Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother's matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has taken her Pó Po's traditional Chinese zodiac approach and made it about "animal attraction," her emotions skew more toward furious-slash-outraged. Especially when L.A.'s most-eligible bachelor Bennett O'Brien is behind the app that could destroy her family's legacy... Liv knows better than to fall for any guy, let alone an infuriatingly handsome one who believes that traditions are meant to be broken. As the two businesses go head to head, Bennett and Liv make a deal: they'll find a match for each other-and whoever falls in love loses. But Liv is dealing with someone who's already adept at stealing business ideas... so what's stopping him from stealing her heart, too?"-- Provided by publisher