Want to know what books Renata Salecl recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Renata Salecl's favorite book recommendations of all time.
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A bold, razor-sharp novel about a shadowy antihero navigating Montreal’s immigrant underworld.
One of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, Cockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage’s critically acclaimed first book, De Niro’s Game. The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal’s restless immigrant community, where a self-described “thief” has just tried but failed to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a local park. Rescued against his will, the narrator is... more A bold, razor-sharp novel about a shadowy antihero navigating Montreal’s immigrant underworld.
One of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, Cockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage’s critically acclaimed first book, De Niro’s Game. The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal’s restless immigrant community, where a self-described “thief” has just tried but failed to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a local park. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator’s violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky émigré cafés where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen nighttime streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but willfully blind, citizens who surround him.
Cockroach combines an uncompromising vision of humanity with razor-sharp portraits of society's outsiders, and a startling, poetic sensibility with bracing jolts of dark humor. . less 
Renata SaleclRawi Hage’s Cockroach, a novel about today’s times. It’s about an immigrant from an unnamed Middle Eastern country who comes to Montreal and lives the life of a cockroach – which means he’s a little thief, endlessly hungry, and he’s searching for food other people are throwing out. He’s capable of getting into other people’s houses and stealing some objects just so that he can get a little bit of... (Source)
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Simon Axler is one of America's leading classical stage actors, but his talent - his magic - has deserted him. All the spontaneity and unthinking impulsiveness that made him great has been replaced by a paralysing self-consciousness. Overwhelmed, Axler's wife promptly leaves him, and Axler checks into a psychiatric hospital. It is only when he begins an affair with Pegeen - formerly a lesbian of 17 years - that Axler's regeneration (and then his final catastrophe) can begin. more Simon Axler is one of America's leading classical stage actors, but his talent - his magic - has deserted him. All the spontaneity and unthinking impulsiveness that made him great has been replaced by a paralysing self-consciousness. Overwhelmed, Axler's wife promptly leaves him, and Axler checks into a psychiatric hospital. It is only when he begins an affair with Pegeen - formerly a lesbian of 17 years - that Axler's regeneration (and then his final catastrophe) can begin. less Renata SaleclIt’s not the best of Roth’s novels but it’s nonetheless important. The main character, Simon, is an actor who has lost his spark and can’t perform any more. He loses his fame, and his wife, and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. He becomes an ageing loner, and so the first part appears just a sad debate over a lost life – where the person’s still alive. Then he finds a young lover who used to be... (Source)
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Bruce Pike can hear the sea at night and longs to go to the shore. When he befriends Loonie, his small town's wild boy, that dream is realized. Together, intoxicated by the treacherous power of the waves and by the immortality of youth, the two boys defy all limits and rules. Pikelet learns what it is to be extraordinary, feels exhilaration for the very first time, and - caught up in love and friendship and an erotic current he cannot resist - he understands the true meaning of fear. These are experiences that will far outlast his adolescence. How, then, to mask the emptiness of leaving such... more Bruce Pike can hear the sea at night and longs to go to the shore. When he befriends Loonie, his small town's wild boy, that dream is realized. Together, intoxicated by the treacherous power of the waves and by the immortality of youth, the two boys defy all limits and rules. Pikelet learns what it is to be extraordinary, feels exhilaration for the very first time, and - caught up in love and friendship and an erotic current he cannot resist - he understands the true meaning of fear. These are experiences that will far outlast his adolescence. How, then, to mask the emptiness of leaving such intensity behind?
'A love letter to the sea and a moving coming-of-age story . . . Rapturous' "Sunday Telegraph"
'Breath has the sensibility and reach of an epic' " Scotland on Sunday "
'Full of fizz and a vital poetry of sun, sand, sea and air' " Independent on Sunday"
'"Breath" has the urgent clarity of a story that needed to be told' "Guardian" less Renata SaleclTim Winton’s Breath. It’s a novel about a main character Bruce ‘Pikelet’, who as a teenager becomes obsessed with surfing, and who, with his friend ‘Loonie’, starts observing an old surfer, Sando, who used to be an ideal in their little town, and who knows how to catch the best wave. The whole story is really about the enjoyment one finds in transgressing the boundary between life and death, and... (Source)
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In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Men are encouraged to surgically pump up their pecs, breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, and eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting children as young as six. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran, behind the Hijab there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions.
In her years... more In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Men are encouraged to surgically pump up their pecs, breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, and eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting children as young as six. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran, behind the Hijab there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions.
In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realise that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this book, she raises the fundamental questions about how we arrived here and proposes a new theory on how we became embodied. less Renata SaleclSusie Orbach is a so-called relational psychoanalyst, and she wrote this book, Bodies, where she looks at how the body is perceived in post-industrial, late capitalism. Again we have the idea of body as a product, something that you work on and that is completely in your power. Of course, the cosmetics and dieting industries have hugely contributed to this, so she makes a social critique,... (Source)
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What happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. In this book, Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. more What happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. In this book, Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. less Renata SaleclDarian Leader is a British psychoanalyst who in a great way undermines today’s ideas about depression. He starts with the premise that we live in a society of hyped optimism, where depression appears as a danger that goes against optimism – it’s something for people who gave up the fight for success or whatever. Today we use the terms depression and stress too much – they dominate psychiatric and... (Source)
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