Welcome to OR Books
A radical, exciting response to Amazonian hegemony. —Dazed
OR Books is a new type of publishing company. It embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business. More

Courtesy of Eric Hanson, an illustrator whose work has appeared on the covers of a number of OR Books and in a range of our promotion material. His portfolio can be viewed here..
September 21, 2020"Writing at the very beginning of the pandemic, Zizek predicted almost precisely what would happen in the United States" — PANDEMIC! featured on Splice Today September 21, 2020Matt Taibbi discusses THE BUSINESS SECRETS OF DRUG DEALING on the Joe Rogan Experience September 21, 2020"The Post-Objectivity Era" — HATE INC. author Matt Taibbi writes on Substack September 21, 2020"Jason Boog on the Great Depression, journalism, and different perspectives in history" — THE DEEP END author writes for Why is this interesting? September 18, 2020NEW EVENT: IN DEFENSE OF JULIAN ASSANGE contributors Renata Ávila, Nathan Fuller, and Margaret Kimberley in conversation with Anya Parampil for People's Forum on Tuesday, 09/22/20
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New Titles from OR Books
The Fascination of What’s Difficult
A Life of Maud Gonne
Kim Bendheim
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Maud Gonne, the legendary woman known as the Irish Joan of Arc, left her mark on everyone she met. She famously won the devotion of one of the greatest poets of the age, William Butler Yeats. Born into tremendous privilege, she allied herself with rebels and the downtrodden and openly defied what was at the time the world’s most powerful empire. More
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Rediscovering Earth
Ten Dialogues on the Future of Nature
Anders Dunker
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The gap between what we know and what we do has haunted the field of moral philosophy since antiquity, and is at the center of today’s environmental crisis. Put simply: if we know that we are destroying the planet, our habitat, why do we continue to do it? The ten dialogues collected here investigate this question, and propose how we might salvage the planet and save our own lives. More
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Everything Must Change!
The World After Covid-19
Edited by Renata Ávila & Srećko Horvat
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Everything Must Change! brings together prominent commentators from around the world to present a rich and nuanced weighing of progressive possibilities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. More
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The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing
An Almost True Account
MATT TAIBBI & “ANONYMOUS”
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The Business Secrets of Drug Dealing tells the story of a hyper-observant, politically-minded, but humorously pragmatic weed dealer who has spent a working life compiling rules for how to a) make money and b) avoid prison. More
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American Monstrosity
Donald Trump: How We Got Him • How We Stop Him
NATHAN J. ROBINSON
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Nathan J Robinson has emerged in recent years as one of the most eloquent and engaging voices in a new cohort of young left-wing journalists who are transforming the American media landscape. Here he sets his unsparing gaze and biting wit on the greatest grotesquery in a competitive field let loose on a hapless public by an American political system lurching out of the control of all but the super-rich: Donald J. Trump. More
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Beautiful Trouble Strategy Card Deck
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This box of more than 100 cards from the celebrated activist group Beautiful Trouble provides both invaluable information on the key strategies and tactics that have inspired centuries of people-powered political victories and a series of games you can play with fellow protestors. Use the cards to learn and teach organizing, free up creativity when planning grassroots actions, or just entertain your dinner party guests. More
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Pen Pal
Prison Letters from a Free Spirit on Slow Death Row
TIYO ATTALLAH SALAH-EL
Available Now
Tiyo Attallah Salah-El died in 2018 on “Slow Death Row” while serving a life sentence in a Pennsylvania prison. He was a man with a dizzying array of talents and vocations: author, scholar, teacher, musician, and activist: he was the founder of the Coalition for the Abolition of Prisons. He was also, as is apparent from the letters that make up this book, an extraordinarily eloquent correspondent. More
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The Sinking Middle Class
A Political History
DAVID R. ROEDIGER
Available Now
Drawing on rich traditions of radical social thought, Roediger disavows the thinly sourced idea that the United States was, for much of its history, a “middle-class” nation and the still more indefensible position that it is one now. The increasing immiseration of large swathes of middle-income America, only accelerated by the current pandemic, nails a fallacy that is a major obstacle to progressive change. More
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People’s Power
Reclaiming the Energy Commons
ASHLEY DAWSON
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People’s Power provides a persuasive critique of a market-led transition to renewable energy. It surveys the early development of the electric grid in the United States, telling the story of battles for public control over power during the Great Depression. More
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Pandemic!
Covid-19 Shakes the World
SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
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As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes, and speculate on the profundity of its consequences, all in a manner that will have you sweating profusely and gasping for breath? More
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The Deep End
The Literary Scene in the Great Depression and Today
JASON BOOG
Available Now
It’s tough being an author these days, and it’s getting harder. A recent Authors Guild survey showed that the median income for all published authors in 2017, based solely on book-related activities, was just over $3,000, down more than 20% from eight years previously. Roughly 25% of authors earned nothing at all. Price cutting by retailers, notably Amazon, has forced publishers to pay their writers less. A stagnant economy, with only the rich seeing significant income increases, has hit writers along with everyone else. More
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War in the Age of Trump
The Fall of ISIS, the Betrayal of the Kurds, the Conflict with Iran
PATRICK COCKBURN
Available Now
In this successor to his bestselling The Rise of Islamic State, which was translated into 16 languages, and the widely-acclaimed The Age of Jihad, prize-winning foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn provides a clear-sighted and closely-observed account of the Middle East wars conducted by Donald Trump during the first term of his presidency. More
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An Inheritance for Our Times
Principles and Politics of Democratic Socialism
GREGORY SMULEWICZ-ZUCKER and MICHAEL J. THOMPSON
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An Inheritance for Our Times is a reader that includes original essays in the form of both personal accounts and intellectual arguments from activists and theorists advocating a democratic socialist outlook. More
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Bernie’s Brooklyn
How Growing Up in the New Deal City Shaped Bernie Sanders’ Politics
THEODORE HAMM
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Bernie Sanders’ tilt at the US presidency has come under fire from an establishment that derides his social democratic policies as alien to the American way. But, as Ted Hamm reveals in this engaging and concise history, the sort of socialism Bernie advocates was commonplace in the Brooklyn where he grew up in the 1940s and 50s. More
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Tales of Two Planets
Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World
JOHN FREEMAN
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Building from his acclaimed anthology Tales of Two Americas, beloved writer and editor John Freeman draws together a group of our greatest writers from around the world to help us see how the environmental crisis is hitting some of the most vulnerable communities where they live. More
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Lucid Dreaming
Conversations with 29 Filmmakers
PAMELA COHN
Available Now
Lucid Dreaming is an unprecedented global collection of discussions with documentary and experimental filmmakers, giving film and video its rightful place alongside the written word as an essential medium for conveying the most urgent concerns in contemporary arts and politics. More
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Surf, Sweat and Tears
The Epic Life and Mysterious Death of Edward George William Omar Deerhurst
ANDY MARTIN
Available Now
Surf, Sweat and Tears takes us into the world of global surfing, revealing a dark side beneath the dazzling sun and cream-crested waves. Here is surf noir at its most compelling, a dystopian tale of one man’s obsessions, wiped out in a grizzly true crime. More
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Hate Inc.
Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another
MATT TAIBBI
Available Now
In this characteristically turbocharged new book, celebrated Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi provides an insider’s guide to the variety of ways today’s mainstream media tells us lies. Part tirade, part confessional, it reveals that what most people think of as “the news” is, in fact, a twisted wing of the entertainment business. More
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