POETRY FOR THE MANY
In this sparkling anthology Jeremy Corbyn and Len McCluskey discuss the poems that have moved and enlightened them. Their choices travel over centuries and continents, with poets ranging from Shakespeare and Juana Inés de la Cruz, through William Blake and Emily Dickinson, to Bertolt Brecht, Stevie Smith and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
More‘An excellent collection of wonderful poetry from wonderful people encouraging the working classes to embrace and enjoy culture. Poetry and music for the many!
—Robin Campbell, UB40
‘A beautiful collection of poetry which shows how inspirational and transformative the power of words can be.’
—Brian Reade
Stephen Duncombe
Car Dreams: Debt, Carcerality and the Automobile
Asa Winstanelye on the Electronic Intifada
Gary Younge on Double Down News
Maximilian Alvarez interviewed on Breaking Points
Kim Bendheim
Anders Dunker
Matt Taibbi
Renata Ávila and Srećko Horvat
Ashley Dawson
About Us
“OR Books has firmly established itself as the go-to source for titles that challenge the status quo and suggest options for moving beyond our current ruts.” —Ben Terrall, CounterPunch
“A great, exciting project!” —Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
“Over the last five years, Oakes and co-founder Colin Robinson have turned OR into one of the most original publishers in the US.” —Jonathon Sturgeon, Flavorwire
“A publisher of dissident voices.” —David Richter, Book Culture
OR Books
Alternative Publishing
OR Books is a new type of publishing company. It embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business.
Our list is highly selective: we publish just one or two books a month, combining established authors with new discoveries.
Our editorial standards are fastidious; our design clear and elegant.
We employ exciting promotion with highly creative use of video and the Internet.
To avoid the waste of unsold stock and returns, we produce our books only when they are wanted, as print-on-demand and as platform-agnostic e-books.
This system allows a rapid publishing turnaround so relevant books can intervene quickly in issues of the day.
Most importantly, we sell direct to you, the customer, shipping promptly when a book is released and/or your order is received.
Our approach jettisons the inefficiencies of conventional publishing to better serve readers, writers and the environment.
It points to a new future for book publishing.
We hope you will join with us.
OR Books
OR Books: The Movies
In a cinematic experience that rivals Ben Hur, Oakes and Robinson were filmed last summer talking about the crisis of contemporary book publishing and how OR Books will do things differently.
Who We Are
OR Books was founded by John Oakes and Colin Robinson.
John Oakes co-founded the publishing company Four Walls Eight Windows, which was purchased by the Avalon Publishing Group. Among the authors he has published are Andrei Codrescu, Sue Coe, R. Crumb, Cory Doctorow, Andrea Dworkin, Abbie Hoffman, Gordon Lish, Harvey Pekar, Rudy Rucker, John Waters and Edmund White. Oakes is a former board member of PEN America. He has written for the Associated Press, the International Herald Tribune, and the Review of Contemporary Fiction. He is director of the New School Publishing Institute and publisher of The Evergreen Review.
Colin Robinson worked as a senior editor at Scribner and was previously managing director of Verso Books and publisher of The New Press. Among the authors he has published are Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Mike Davis, Norman Finkelstein, Eduardo Galeano, Eric Hobsbawm, Lewis Lapham, Mike Marqusee, Rigoberta Menchú, Matt Taibbi and Jann Wenner. He has written for publications including The New York Times, The London Review of Books, The Sunday Times (London) and The Guardian (London), and has appeared on broadcast media including NPR (“On the Media”), CNN, MSNBC, CBC and CSPN.
Contact Us
For media inquiries:
publicity [at] wp.orbooks.com
Within the UK:
ukpublicity [at] wp.orbooks.com
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For orders:
orders [at] wp.orbooks.com
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For rights inquiries:
rights [at] wp.orbooks.com
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For general information:
info [at] wp.orbooks.com
Please note that OR Books does not accept unsolicited manuscripts or book submissions.
Media Coverage
Publishers Weekly, April 15th, 2016
Publishers Weekly, April 14th, 2016
Entropy Magazine, January 30th 2015
Nola Defender, November 14th 2011
Financial Times, September 30th 2011
Publishing Trends, July 2011
Publishers Weekly, June 22nd 2011
Publishers Weekly, June 13th 2011
Moby Lives, April 4th 2011
Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 2nd 2011
The Scholarly Kitchen, January 3rd 2011
Publisher’s Weekly, January 3rd 2011
The Huffington Post, December 8th 2010
GalleyCat, December 8th 2010
hublines.com, December 2010
Publishers Weekly, December 7th 2010
Shelf Awareness, December 7th 2010
St. Mark’s Bookshop and OR Books Announce a New Joint Venture, December 6th 2010
Publishing Perspectives, October 6th 2010
O’Reilly Radar, August 7th 2010
Independent Publisher, July 2010
Colin Robinson: “Why Amazon Is Bad for Publishers, Bookstores, Authors and, Yes, Readers Too,” The Nation, July 14th 2010.
John Oakes on embracing the digital age, The London Progressive Journal, Issue 117, 16th to 22nd April 2010
Writer 2.0, March 26th 2010
Colin Robinson on OR Books and Amazon, The Huffington Post, March 22nd 2010
Author Liza Featherstone publishing with OR Books, Crains, March 14th 2010
John Oakes on the OR Books process, The Huffington Post, November 30th 2009
Colin Robinson talks about Going Rouge and OR Books on On The Media, November 27th 2009
Publishers Weekly, October 22nd 2009
Photo © 2009 Miriam Berkley
“Four Veterans, Two New Ventures,” Publishers Lunch, May 31, 2009
In a voyage abundant in metaphors (and blessed with sunshine) publishing veterans John Oakes and Colin Robinson literally launched their new venture OR Books on a old fireboat from a pier eight blocks south of the Javits center on Sunday afternoon. The boat chugged leisurely around the south end of Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty and right past the giant Queen Mary 2 in Red Hook. From a megaphone on the top deck they hailed their “politically progressive and culturally adventurous” content paired with a “revolutionary approach to business.”
In other words, they aim to sell non-returnable only and print only on-demand (or not at all via ebooks). And they pledge to spend the money saved on inventory on marketing instead. Oakes said they want to “affirm the partnership between publishers and authors.” Robinson added that a publisher’s “first obligation is to find readers for the books they’re publishing” and commented, “we know the existing doesn’t work. We’re going to try something new.” Oakes added, “if the boat goes down, there goes the future of publishing.”
They will launch in September, and announced a collaboration with the editorial collective Mischief & Mayhem (comprising Lisa Dierbeck, Josh Furst, DW Gibson, Dale Peck and Choire Sicha) which will contribute books to the venture. (Oakes co-founded Four Walls Eight Windows, and was publisher of Thunder’s Mouth and then executive editor at Atlas; Robinson was managing director at Verso; publisher at the New Press; and then a senior editor at Scribner).
Additional Links
Crain’s New York (July 12, 2009)
Inefficient Frontiers (June 6, 2009)
About this Website
This website was happily created by Al Rotches, in close collaboration with OR Books.
