Odyssey Editions: 36 books

Richard Rayner had a peripatetic childhood, and it seemed he found some sense of place when he attended Cambridge University. The study of philosophy combined with an obsession with books, however, served as the catalyst for a bizarre life of crime. Mounting debts propelled the author into a series...

In Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie presents ten years’ worth of concentrated thought on topics from the most cherished literary traditions and authors of India, Europe, and America to the politics of oppression, the joy of film and television, and the enduring value of the imagination. Writing...

Playfully perverse in form as well as content, riddled with puns and literary allusions, Nabokov's 1955 novel is a hymn to the Russian-born author's delight in his adopted language. Indeed, readers who want to probe all of its allusive nooks and crannies will need to consult the annotated edition....

THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT brings together twenty-four of Oliver Sacks’ most fascinating and beloved case studies. The patients in these pages are confronted with almost inconceivably strange neurological disorders; in Sacks’ telling, their stories are a profound testament to the adaptability...

In ALWAYS RIGHT historian Niall Ferguson offers a characteristically original, incisive and witty account of Margaret Thatcher's reign – the word seems appropriate – as British Prime Minister. Denounced by her enemies as divisive and dictatorial, Thatcher was the greatest leader Britain has produced...

The exploding pace of technological change today offers America opportunities to reduce our debt, grow our economy, and cement America as the most innovative and advanced nation on Earth. These solutions could be faster, better, cheaper and lasting—if the post-election government can agree on a growth...

When Haroun Khalifa’s father, the renowned storyteller Rashid Khalifa, loses his gift of gab, Haroun knows he has to help. Soon, he’s tumbled headfirst into an adventure story of his own, journeying toward the legendary Sea of Stories on the back of a flying Hoopoe bird. There, he finds a host...

In 1975, Saul Bellow traveled through Israel, turning his keen powers of observation upon the country he did not know. This book is a record of his stay—his personal experiences and fleeting impressions—and a reflection upon what he ultimately learned about the hallowed land. In Bellow’s signature...

Patrimony, a true story, touches the emotions as strongly as anything Philip Roth has ever written. Roth watches as his eight-six-year-old father—famous for his vigor, his charm, and his repertoire of Newark recollections—battles with the brain tumor that will kill him. The son, full of love,...

Barbara, a Playboy bunny, is delectable. Richard loves her. He abandons his life in London, a steady girlfriend, and a job, and flies to Los Angeles in search of Barbara and the romanticized America he's seen only in the movies. Richard obsessively pursues Barbara through a series of misadventures...

In this collection of more than thirty essays, published in The New York Times, Esquire and The New Republic, the vast range of Saul Bellow’s nonfiction is made abundantly clear. In Bellow’s capable hands, a single essay can range fluidly across topics as various as the talents of President Roosevelt,...

The great novel of the American dream, of “the universal eligibility to be noble,” Saul Bellow’s third book charts the picaresque journey of one schemer, chancer, romantic, and holy fool: Augie March. Awarded the National Book Award in 1953, The Adventures of Augie March remains one of the...

Advertisements for Myself, a diverse and freewheeling tour through Mailer’s early career, covers the many subjects with which he’d grapple for the rest of his life: sex, race, politics, literature, and the systems of power that shape American life. There are lists, interviews, poems, confessions,...

Moses E. Herzog, the protagonist of Saul Bellow’s Herzog finds himself in a pickle. He may be handsome, witty and wise, but his wife has just taken off with his best friend, and he is without resources to face his troubles. What is an academic to do when his personal life turns to chaos? Well this...