ODY New Books Collection

Intraterrestrials

"Life thrives in the deepest, darkest recesses of Earth's crust -- from methane seeps in the ocean floor to the highest reaches of Arctic permafrost -- and it is unlike anything seen on the surface. Intraterrestrials shares what scientists are learning about these strange types of microbial life -- and how research expeditions to some of the most extreme locales on the planet are broadening our understanding of what life is and how its earliest forms may have evolved. Drawing on her experiences and those of her fellow scientists working in challenging and often dangerous conditions, Karen Lloyd takes readers on an adventure from the bottom of the ocean through the jungles of Central America to the high-altitude volcanoes of the Andes. Only discovered in recent decades, "intraterrestrials" -- subsurface beings that are truly alien -- are demonstrating how life can exist in boiling water, pure acid, and bleach. They enable us to peer back to the very dawn of life on Earth, disclosing deep branches on the tree of life that push the limits of what we thought possible. Some can "breathe" rocks or even electrons. Others may live for hundreds of thousands of years or longer. All of them are living in ways that are totally foreign to us surface dwellers. Blending captivating storytelling with the latest science, Intraterrestrials reveals what microbes in Earth's deep subsurface biosphere can tell us about the prospects for finding life on other planets -- and the future of life on our own." -- Provided by publisher

The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered

"Today the number of native speakers of Indo-European languages across the world is approximated to be over 2.6 billion--about 45 percent of the Earth's population. Yet the idea that an ancient, prehistoric population in one time and place gave rise to a wide variety of peoples and languages is one with a long and troubled past. In this expansive investigation, based on more than forty years of research, archaeologist J. P. Mallory navigates the complex history of our search for the Indo-European homeland, offering fresh insight into the debates surrounding origin, as well as the latest genetic research. In this compelling account, Mallory explores ancient migrations, linguistics, and archaeology, applying cutting-edge genetic research to untangle the key arguments with wit and verve. He addresses how the controversial idea of a single, shared homeland has been viewed by scientists, archaeologists, and linguists across the past century and reconsiders how, in the case of the Nazis and more recent nationalist movements, they have been manipulated for political advantage. The author goes on to analyze the linguistic trail linking current populations to the Indo-Europeans, looking at Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and more, as he traces linguistic origins across multiple peoples and cultures, bringing the most up-to-date phylogenetic research to bear on this story. Ultimately this important volume offers the most conclusive and nuanced understanding of an oft-misrepresented and misunderstood topic."-- Provided by publisher

In Covid's
Wake

"An examination of the ways in which Covid policies, and the scientific debate which surrounded it, were politicized. In response to the Covid pandemic, public and private resources were expended on a vast scale-truly the equivalent of wartime. 2020 saw the greatest mobilization of emergency powers in human history: people around the world were confined to their homes, not allowed to attend religious services, see family living outside their households, or even take extended solitary walks outdoors. A few weeks after the first society-wide lockdowns in China and Italy, 3.9 billion people were living under some form of quarantine-half the world's population. In the aftermath of the pandemic, political theorist Stephen Macedo and political scientist Frances Lee argue in this book that there is an urgent need to ask hard questions about the effectiveness and impact of these policies, especially as new studies about them emerge. Was it worth it? Did we do the right thing? Did we debate and deliberate adequately? Did scientists, public health officials, and others sometimes mislead the public or "economize" on the truth in presenting "the science"? Insofar as complexities were simplified, was this just effective public health messaging? If truths were trimmed, could this be justified as "noble lies" in the public interest? Can what seemed expedient in the short run be justified in the long run? And what should we learn about our successes and failures for the next pandemic or, for that matter, any other policy crisis in which it is necessary to rely upon scientific expertise? The book examines how public deliberation fared under Covid, providing a retrospective assessment of policy responses to the pandemic. Macedo and Lee evaluate the performance under pressure of the central truth-seeking institutions of liberal democracy: science, journalism, and universities broadly."-- Provided by publisher

The Imagined Life

"Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what happened to his own father, a brilliant, charismatic professor who disappeared in 1984 when Steve was twelve, on a wave of ignominy. As Steve drives up the coast of California, seeking out his father's friends, family members, and former colleagues, the novel offers us tantalizing glimpses into Steve's childhood-his parents' legendary pool parties, the black-and-white films on the backyard projector, secrets shared with his closest friend. Each conversation in the present reveals another layer of his father's past, another insight into his disappearance. Yet with every revelation, his father becomes more difficult to recognize. And, with every insight, Steve must confront truths about his own life. Rich in atmosphere, and with a stunningly sure-footed emotional compass, The Imagined Life is a probing, nostalgic novel about the impossibility of understanding one's parents, about first loves and failures, about lost innocence, about the unbreakable bonds between a father and a son."-- Provided by publisher

I Seek a Kind Person

This memoir explores the experiences of children who escaped the Holocaust through advertisements placed in the *Manchester Guardian* by Jewish families in Vienna in 1938. The book follows journalist Julian Borger as he investigates the story of his father, Robert, who was one of the children saved by such an ad. Decades later, Borger uncovers the hidden histories of his father and other children who were displaced during World War II. Drawing on historical records and personal accounts, the narrative spans various locations, including Vienna, Shanghai, Britain, Nazi Germany, Holland, France, and New York, highlighting the children's journeys, the impact of war, and the individuals who helped them survive.

The Haunting of Room 904

"From the author of White Horse ("Twisty and electric." -The New York Times Book Review) comes a terrifying and resonant novel about a woman who uses her unique gift to learn the truth about her sister's death. Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can't stop seeing and hearing from spirits. A few years later, she's the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She's good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That's when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can't explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. As Olivia tries to understand these disturbing deaths, the past and the present collide as Olivia's investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister's secret life. The Haunting of Room 904 is a paranormal thriller that is as edgy as it is heartfelt and simmers with intensity and longing. Erika T. Wurth lives up to her reputation as "a gritty new punkish outsider voice in American horror.""-- Provided by publisher

Happiness Forever

"A debut novel, at once funny and tender, about a woman infatuated with her therapist. Sylvie is happy only when she's in therapy. This is because Sylvie is in love with her therapist; she thinks about her every second they're not together (roughly 167 hours and 10 minutes per week). In that room, Sylvie is able to talk about everything: the false hope promised by eighties music; what a dog's inner life is really like and how sad, she, Sylvie is, outside that room. She's aware she has an obsession, but whether it's some flavor of erotic transference or a lost person's need to connect, Sylvie isn't sure. Outside therapy Sylvie has what she considers to be a small life: a job as a veterinary nurse, companionship from her tattoo artist friend via text, and seaside walks with her brain-damaged dog, Curtains. But maybe therapy is making a difference, inviting her to imagine possibilities -- possibilities that include a new friend she meets on the beach. When the therapist starts to prepare Sylvie for the terrible fact that all treatment has to come to an end, Sylvie can't stop herself from imagining sleeping in her car parked outside the therapist's house. That won't work. She has to be brave. Be brave, Sylvie! We love you. In this wonderful, hilarious, stunning debut, Adelaide Faith captures the vulnerability, difficulty and joy of personhood, of being a person, of being alive."-- Provided by publisher

Girl on Girl

"A blazing critique of how early-aughts pop culture turned women and girls against each other--and themselves--with disastrous consequences. What happened to feminism in the 21st century? This question feels increasingly urgent after a period of reactionary cultural and legislative backlash, when widespread uncertainty about the movement's power, focus, and currency threatens decades of progress. Sophie Gilbert, a staff writer at The Atlantic and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, provides one answer, identifying an inflection point in the late 1990s and early 2000s when the energy of third-wave and 'riot girrrl' feminism collapsed into a regressive period of hyper-objectification, sexualization, and infantilization. Gilbert mines the darker side of nostalgia, training her keen analytic eye on the most revealing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. And what she recounts is harrowing, from the leering aesthetic of American Apparel ads and explicit music videos to a burgeoning internet culture vicious towards women in the spotlight and damaging for those who weren't. Gilbert tracks many of the period's dominant themes back to the explosion of internet porn, tracing its widespread influence as it began to pervade our collective consciousness. Gilbert paints a devastating picture of an era when a distinctly American confluence of excess, materialism, and power-worship collided with the culture's reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents. Amid a collective reconsideration of the way women are treated in public, Girl on Girl is a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny that undergirded the cultural production of the early twenty-first century, and how it continues to shape our world today."-- Provided by publisher

Ginseng Roots

"From the celebrated author of Blankets and Habibi comes a long-awaited return to the graphic memoir form. Ginseng Roots follows Craig Thompson and his siblings-who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour-and interweaves this lost youth with the three-hundred-year history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together. Stretching from Marathon, Wisconsin, to northeast China, Ginseng Roots charts the rise of industrial agriculture, the decline of American labor, and the search for a sense of home in a rapidly changing world."-- Provided by publisher

Friends of the Museum

When Diane Schwebe, the director of a major New York museum, is awakened in the early morning by a text message from the museum's lawyer, it is the start of a twenty-four hour roller-coaster ride. Diane has sacrificed many things in her life to help the fading institution stave off irrelevance and financial ruin. In this battle, she's surrounded by her stalwart supporters: her enigmatic and tireless personal assistant, Chris; the museum's trusty head of security, Shay; and its general counsel, Henry -- a man whose ability to weasel his way out of a jam is matched only by his capacity to avoid learning anything from the experience. Orbiting Diane is a motley assortment of museum employees, each on the precipice of collapse or revelation: among them a line cook staring down a huge opportunity he's not sure he wants; a costume curator stuck in an inescapable rut; and the ambivalent curator of the museum's film program, whose first day on the job might very well be his last. On this day of the museum's annual gala, every plate that Diane has kept spinning will fall and by daybreak, someone will be dead. Wise, surprising, and darkly funny, Friends of the Museum is a kaleidoscopic tragicomedy that surges along to the unstoppable tick of the clock, leaving you on the edge of your seat until the final second.

The Fact Checker

"It's just a puff piece about a farmer's market, I said to myself. It's not going to kill anyone. It started out like any other morning for the Fact Checker. The piece, "Mandeville/Green," didn't raise any red flags. There were more pressing stories that week at The Magazine -- terrorism, war, or some other grave matter -- it being 2004 New York City and all. "Mandeville/Green" was a light, breezy look at a local farm called New Egypt, whose Ramapo tomatoes were quickly becoming the summer's hottest produce. At first glance, the story seemed straightforward, but one line made the Fact Checker pause: a stray quote from a New Egypt volunteer named Sylvia making a cryptic reference to "nefarious business" at the farmer's market. "People sell everything here," she's alleged to have said. "It ain't all green." When Sylvia abruptly disappears the morning after an unexpectedly long night with the Fact Checker, he becomes obsessed with finding her. Did Sylvia discover something unsavory about New Egypt or its messianic owner? Is it possible she had some reason to fear for her safety? Or was it simply something the Fact Checker said? Striking the perfect balance of humor, wonder, sadness, and poignancy, Austin Kelley's debut novel takes readers on a quixotic quest from one hidden corner of New York City to another -- from an underground supper club in the Financial District to an abandoned-boat-turned-anarchist-community-space on the Gowanus Canal. As the story develops, the Fact Checker begins to question his perception of what's real and what's not. Facts can be deceiving, after all, and if you aren't careful, you might miss the truth right in front of your eyes." -- Provided by publisher

Exit Zero

"Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland. Death-shaped entities―with all of their humor and strangeness― haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino."-- Amazon

Empty Vessel

Empty Vessel by Ian Kumekawa is a gripping microhistory of a single barge--known by many names--that served various roles across the globe, from military housing to a floating prison. Using the vessel as a lens, the book explores the rise of neoliberalism, offshore markets, and global capitalism, showing how this shape-shifting ship embodies the forces of deregulation, labor exploitation, and economic abstraction in the modern world.

The Emperor of Gladness

"A year in the life of a wayward young man in New England who, by chance, becomes the caretaker for an eighty-two-year-old widow living with dementia, powering a story of friendship, loss, and how much we're willing to risk to claim one of life's most treasured mercies: a second chance"-- Provided by publisher

Eminent Jews

"Leonard Bernstein, Mel Brooks, Betty Friedan, and Norman Mailer. Brilliant, brash, 100 percent Jewish and 100 percent American, they were hell-bent on shaking up the world of their fathers. They worked in different fields, and, apart from clinking glasses at parties now and then, they hardly knew one another. But they shared a commonhistorical moment and a common temperament. For all four, their Jewish heritage was electrified by American liberty. As prosperity for American Jews increased and anti-Semitism began to fade after World War II, these four creative giants stormed through the latter half of the twentieth century, altering the way people listened to music, defined what was vulgar or not, comprehended the relations of men and women, and understood the nation's soul. They were not saints; they were Jews, children of immigrants, turbulent and self-dissatisfiedintellectuals who fearlessly wielded their own newly won freedom tofree up American culture. Celebratory yet candid, at times fiercelycritical, David Denby presents these four figures as egotistical and generous-larger-than-life, all of them, both daringly individual and emblematic of their Jewish generation."-- Provided by publisher

The Director

"G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. Pabst, his wife, and his young son are suddenly confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. So, when Joseph Goebbels--the minister of propaganda in Berlin--sees the potential for using the European film icon for his directorial genius and makes big promises to Pabst and his family, Pabst must consider Goebbels's thinly veiled order. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement."-- Amazon.com

Cults like Us

"A colorful and enlightening pop history that explains why the eccentric doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders are still driving American culture today -- and proposes that the United States is the largest cult of all. Since the Mayflower sidled up near Plymouth Rock, cult ideology has been ingrained in the DNA of the United States. In this eye-opening book, journalist Jane Borden argues that Puritan doomsday belief never went away; it just went secular and became American culture. From our fascination with cowboys and superheroes to our allegiance to influencers and self-help, susceptibility to advertising, and undying devotion to the almighty dollar, Americans remain particularly vulnerable to a specific brand of cultlike thinking. With in-depth research and compelling insight, Borden uncovers the American history you didn't learn in school, including how we are still being influenced, making us a nation of easy marks for scam artists and strongmen. Along the way, she also revisits some of the most infamous cults in this country -- including Mankind United and Love Has Won -- presenting them as integral parts of our national psyche rather than as aberrations." -- Jacket flap

Consider Yourself Kissed

"A grown-up love story told through ten years in the life of one woman as she finds a perfect partner, builds a longed-for family and career, and works desperately to be all things to all people without losing herself. When she first meets divorced dad Adam, Coralie is new to London and feeling adrift. But Adam is sexy, witty, generous, and devoted, and the existence of his charming four-year-old daughter only adds to Coralie's thrill as the couple falls in love. Gradually, alongside Adam, Coralie builds the life she's longed for, including two babies, a wonderful stepchild, a continuing career, and a warm, safe home. Ten years on, however, something important is missing. Or maybe, having gained everything she dreamed of, Coralie has lost something else she once had: herself. "Mother, writer, worker, sister, friend, citizen, daughter, wife. If she could be one, perhaps she could manage. Trying to be all, she found she was none." When she hits her breaking point, the results will surprise them all. Set against an eventful decade in the UK that included the soap opera of five Prime Ministers plus Brexit and Covid, Consider Yourself Kissed puts the subjects of love and family on a grand stage, showing how the intimate dramas in our homes inescapably compete for energy and attention with the shared public dramas of our times. Effortlessly balancing humor with heart, sweetness with bite, and the public with the personal, Jessica Stanley offers an honest, entertaining portrayal of the sacrifices women make for their families, and demonstrates the true, grown-up meaning of 'happily ever after.'"-- Provided by publisher

Blazing Eye Sees All

"An investigation of the New Age movement in America aims to understand its appeal to women and the self-proclaimed prophetesses, like Love Has Won's Amy Carlson, who've created kingdoms for themselves within it. Known for deep dives into true crime, extremist ideologies and fringe subcultures, journalist Leah Sottile turns her investigative eye toward American New Age culture. Today, tarot cards, astrology and crystals are everywhere -from Instagram and TikTok, sold at upscale boutiques and pricey wellness retreats. Sottile investigates how the recent surge of interest in New Age ideas speaks to a culture that is woven into the very fabric of America, and how self-professed gurus like Love Has Won's Mother God and the mysterious channeler Ramtha have built devout followings because of it. For more than a century, this pastel-colored world of love, light and enlightenment has been built upon a foundation of conspiracies, antisemitism, nationalism and a rejection of science. In Blazing Eye Sees All, Sottile seeks to understand the quest for New Age spirituality in an era of fear that has made us open to anything that claims to bring relief - from war, the climate crisis, COVID 19, or the myriad of other issues we face. At the same time, she attempts to draw a line between truly helpful, healing ideas and snake oil. The new New Age is everywhere, and Sottile helps us sort through the crystals to find true clarity."-- Provided by publisher

Big Chief

"A gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past. Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go-and what they will sacrifice-to win it all. But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence. Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging-to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance."-- Provided by publisher