Ooligan Press

Hook a book from the nation's premier student-run publishing house.

42

Image descriptionM. Thomas Cooper

Is the number 42 important, or is it all in his mind? When accusations of murder lead George Olson to examine the forces at work in his life, he is lost among coincidences and a strange reality.

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Abraham Lincoln, A Novel Life

Image descriptionTony Wolk

Imagine Abraham Lincoln walking the streets of Evanston, Illinois, on Easter weekend in 1955, just a man suddenly and marginally free of the terrible burden of leading the nation through war. What he leaves and what he takes when he returns to his own time reveals much about this mythic American hero. This first novel is a wonderful piece of speculative fiction that twists the history on which it is built.

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American Scream: Palindrome Apocalypse

Image descriptionDubravka Oraić Tolić

What is America? For the renowned Croatian poet Dubravka Oraić Tolić, it is “what is born from our dreams without our knowing.” In an epic poem that stands as a cultural monument to national independence, Oraić Tolić digs deeply into the idea and the reality of freedom. In Palindrome Apocalypse, an amazing linguistic feat packs new meaning into poetic form.

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Artless: The Odyssey of a Republican Cultural Creative

Image descriptionGary D. Cole

Replete with good humor and dry wit, Artless is a commentary on censorship's many forms - both overt and subtle. Finally, it is the memoir of a man who, against all odds, deftly carved out a niche for himself into two seemingly diametrically opposed arenas, only to discover their incompatibility in the culture wars of contemporary America.

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The Best Dancer

Image descriptionChristoph Keller

Determined to live outside the confines of his disabled body, author Christoph Keller puts his life into perspective through wit and imagination. In this colorful memoir, Keller shows us that sometimes moments of great weakness can be moments of great happiness.

Publication date: December 2008
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Deer Drink the Moon: Poems of Oregon

Image descriptionLiz Nakazawa, Editor

In this collection, thirty–three of Oregon's most esteemed poets write about the state they call home. Arranged by eco–region and accompanied by maps, these ageless poems let readers travel the state with the poets, pausing at places of inspiration. Connection with nature and the importance of family are just two of the themes readers will find along they way.

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Do Angels Cry? Tales of the War

Image descriptionMatko Marušić

In 1991, war broke out in Croatia. Matko Marušić’s short stories offer a human perspective on the war that is not told in history books. Each story illuminates the love and dedication the Croatian people have for their country, and their struggle to find purpose and meaning in the midst of tragedy.

Publication date: October 2008
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Dreams of the West:
The History of the Chinese in Oregon, 1850–1950

Image descriptionChinese Consolidated Benevolent Association

Jointly created by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, history students at Portland State University, and the student staff of Ooligan Press, this bilingual (English/Chinese) history fills a long neglected gap in the immigrant history of the West Coast. This is the little–known history of the state's Chinese immigrants who, by the 1850s, began sailing east from southern China and landed here, where they struggled to make a new home.

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Fort Clatsop: Rebuilding an Icon

Image descriptionThe Daily Astorian

Hoping to capture the spirit of discovery that ruled our nation's past, the community of Astoria, Oregon sought to build a memorial in the form of the Fort Clatsop replica. When this replica burned to the ground and was rebuilt again, a new spirit was captured–one of community, hope, hard work, and fortitude. A collaboration between the Daily Astorian and Ooligan Press, Fort Clatsop: Rebuilding an Icon reveals the three lives of the fort.

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Good Friday

Image descriptionTony Wolk

In Good Friday, the second book in Tony Wolk's Abraham Lincoln trilogy, our protagonist, Joan Matcham grapples with the challenge of carrying Lincoln's child and the possibility that she may change the course of history. This alternative history tale brings Lincoln's emotions and thoughts to the modern reader, from 1865, through 1955, all the way to us in 2007. With references to Shakespeare, Arabian Nights and others, Good Friday is truly an intimate and compelling story that defies classification and appeals to readers across genres.

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José Builds a Woman

Image descriptionJan Baross

Mesmerizing. Stunning. Elegant. Captivating. Powerful. Lush. A winner! Magical realism that seduces the reader from beginning to end. “What a romp! Let Baross take you for a wild ride on her magical-realist camel, from the village of Octopus to the village of The Women, through an extravagantly carnal Mexico of the imagination.” -Ursula K. Le Guin.

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The Portland Red Guide: Sites and Stories of Our Radical Past

Image descriptionMichael Munk

The Portland Red Guide is a testament to Portland's rich history of working–class people and organizations against repression and injustice. It depicts those who insisted on a better justification for their lives than the quest for material wealth, and who dedicated themselves to offering alternative visions of how to organize the economy and society.

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Ricochet River

Image descriptionRobin Cody

Set in a fictional Oregon town in the late 1960s, Cody’s superlative coming-of-age novel is the story of Wade, Lorna, and Jesse—teenagers preparing to break out of their small-town lives. Considered a Northwest classic, this novel is widely used in high schools as an, “adult book for young adults.”

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Speaking Out: Women, War, and the Global Economy

Image descriptionJan Haaken

Speaking Out, a curriculum for high schools and colleges, grew from an international peace project in Sierra Leone addressing issues of war, from personal effects of combat to institutional factors shaping armed conflicts.

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The Survival League

Image descriptionGordan Nuhanović

With the Croatian Ministry of Culture, Ooligan presents Gordan Nuhanović, whose prose is a doorway to the heart and soul of a vibrant society ravaged by recent wars. The one of three Croatian titles published by Ooligan in 2005.

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The Weight of the Sun

Image descriptionGeronimo G. Tagatac

Geronimo Tagatac—in an interrelated collection of short stories about the fictional Guerrero family—captures the essence of a people who are broken, without a home, and lost. Geronimo's fiction has been called “profound, powerful, and poignant.”

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You Have Time for This:
Contemporary American Short Stories

Image descriptionMark Budman & Tom Hazuka, Editors

Love, death, fantasy, and foreign lands, told with brevity and style by the best writers in the short-short fiction genre. This collection takes the modern reader on fifty-three literary rides, each one only five hundred words or less. Mark Budman and Tom Hazuka, two of the top names in the genre, have compiled an anthology of mini-worlds as diverse as the authors who created them.

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Zagreb, Exit South

Image descriptionEdo Popović

Zagreb, Exit South masterfully illuminates the lives of diverse, colorful characters adrift in postwar Croatia. The author is one of Croatia's new literary stars. Already published in most major European languages, this is his first book-length appearance in English. Welcome to America!

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