Odin sent out thought and memory every morning. We bind them into books.
Odin Press is an independent publisher of two kinds of book: technical books that show their working, and prose for the examined life. We edit, typeset and design every book ourselves.
Huginn— thought
Mathematics, science and computing for people who have to make it work. Many of our technical books come with working code in Python, Julia or R; some set their methods out as explicit, step-by-step algorithms; and some are pure mathematics, carried by theorem and proof. Every one shows its reasoning in full and tests its claims, by computation or by argument, so the reader can do the work, not just follow it.
Enter the technical shelf →Muninn— memory
Books for the examined life. Most are non-fiction: on money and time, work and the body, choice and regret, and the selves we keep becoming, each built on stories rather than slogans. Now and then a novel puts the same questions to its characters instead of its readers. All of them are written to be read slowly, and kept.
Enter the prose shelf →A technical book shows its working. Its results come from computation or from proof, its figures are drawn from the same computations, and when a book uses code, the code is printed with it.
Our non-fiction is built on evidence you can follow up: the studies, the figures and the quotations are named in the text and listed at the back.
We typeset every book ourselves: equations set as equations, code you can read, figures close to the paragraphs that discuss them, and pages that are easy on the eye.
Every binding of every book is checked page by page against the printer’s rules and our own: margins, figures, references and the small things a careful reader notices.
Odin Press is also a working studio for other authors and imprints. We take on publication-grade typesetting and composition in LaTeX (mathematics, code and figures included), developmental and copy editing, series-consistent cover design, and consultation on ISBNs, metadata and bringing a title to market. Selected Odin properties are also available for licensing and acquisition.
For studio work or licensing, write to us.
In the old Norse poems Odin is the god who went looking for wisdom: a wanderer in a wide hat who learned the runes and matched riddles with giants. Two ravens sat on his shoulders. Each morning they flew out over the whole world, and when they came back they spoke into his ears everything they had seen and heard. Their names were Huginn, from the Norse word for thought, and Muninn, from the word for remembering.
In the poem Grímnismál Odin admits that every day he worries Huginn will not come home, and that he worries more for Muninn. Thought can be won back; memory, once lost, is harder to find.
Our books are sold through Amazon and other retailers, in paperback and, for most titles, in hardcover. Before you buy, a book’s page here offers a free sample: the preface, the contents and the opening pages of two chapters.
Questions, corrections and requests for rights or review copies are welcome: write to us.