Recommended Reading List
Each section is listed according to my suggested reading order, generally (but not strictly) increasing in difficulty. Copies of books listed can be accessed through sites such as Anna’s Archive or Libgen.
Please note that a recommendation of any given book is not an inherent endorsement of all views espoused within. Rather, these should be taken as the books on each topic that I personally find most interesting. They contain many disagreements with each other for various reasons, but are in important (often unspoken) dialogue with each other as a result. I also encourage readers to use these as a starting point to branch out and findi other books on the same topics, rather than treating these as the be-all and end-all on their relevant subjects.
In addition to the books listed below, I highly recommend the following YouTube channels that cover politics and philosophy: Folding Ideas, Not Just Bikes, Epoch Philosophy, Fredda, Derek Hook, Unlearning Economics, Three Arrows, overzealots, and PlasticPills, to name just a few. Many of these channels draw heavily upon various books and articles in their videos, which can also be used as a starting point for further recommended reading.
Politics (General)
Fisher, M. (2021). Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures. Repeater Books.
Han, B. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Verso.
Han, B. (2015). The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press.
Žižek, S. (2008). Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. Profile Books.
Lasch, C. (1996). The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Baudrillard, J. (2010). The Agony of Power. Semiotext(e).
Châtelet, G. (2014). To Live and Think Like Pigs: The Incitement of Envy and Boredom in Market Democracies. Urbanomic.
Ruskin, J. (1986). Unto This Last And Other Writings. Penguin Books.
Pyschoanalysis
Cohen, J. (2006). How To Read Freud. W. W. Nortion & Company.
Žižek, S. (2006). How To Read Lacan. W. W. Nortion & Company.
Freud, S. (2005). The Essentials of Psycho-Analysis. Vintage Books.
Spielrein, S. (2013). The Essential Writings of Sabina Spielrein: Pioneer of Psychoanalysis. Routledge.
McGowan, T. (2022). The Racist Fantasy: Unconscious Roots of Hatred. Bloomsbury Academic.
Žižek, S. & Barria-Asenjo, N. A. (2024). Political Jouissance. Bloomsbury Academic.
Reshe, J. (2023). Negative Psychoanalysis for the Living Dead: Philosophical Pessimism and the Death Drive. Palgrave Macmillan.
Rose, J. (2005). Sexuality in the Field of Vision. Verso.
Brenner, L. S. (2020). The Autistic Subject: On The Threshold of Language. Palgrave Macmillan.
Arts & Culture
Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books.
Kiberd, R. (2021). The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet. Serpent’s Tail.
Dreger, A. (2006). Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice. Penguin Books.
Lasch, C. (1979). The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. W. W. Norton & Company.
Paglia, C. (1990). Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Yale University Press.
Gender & Society
Engels, F. (2010). The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Penguin Classics.
Paglia, C. (2017). Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism. Pantheon.
Shearing, L. (2025). Pink-Pilled: Women and the Far Right. Manchester University Press.
Lavery, G. (2024). Closures: Heterosexuality and the American Sitcom. Duke University Press.
Men & Masculinity
Power, N. (2023). What Do Men Want? Masculinity and Its Discontents. Penguin Books.
Copland, S. J. (2025). The Male Complaint: The Manosphere and Misogyny Online. Polity Press.
Johanssen, J. (2021). Fantasy, Online Misogyny and the Manosphere: Male Bodies of Dis/Inhibition. Routledge.
Theweleit, K. (1987). Male Fantasies Volume 1: Women, Floods, Bodies, History. University of Minnesota Press.
Theweleit, K. (1989). Male Fantasies Volume 2: Male Bodies: Psychoanalysing the White Terror. University of Minnesota Press.
Sexuality & Eroticism
Bataille, G. (2012). Eroticism. Penguin Books.
Han, B. (2017). The Agony of Eros. The MIT Press.
Davis, O. & Dean, T. (2022). Hatred of Sex. University of Nebraska Press.
Marcuse, H. (1998). Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Routledge.
Žižek, S. (2022). Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide For The Non-Perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic.
Zupančič, A. (2017). What Is Sex? The MIT Press.
Saketopoulou, A. (2023). Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia. New York University Press.
Perniola, M. (2017). Sex Appeal of the Inorganic: The Philosophies of Desire in the Modern World. Bloomsbury Academic.
Biology & Evolution
Plomin, R. (2019). Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are. Penguin Books.
Harden, K. P. (2021). The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality. Princeton University Press.
Haier, R. J. (2023). The Neuroscience of Intelligence (Second Edition). Cambridge University Press.
Stewart-Williams, S. (2019). The Ape that Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (Revised Edition). Cambridge University Press.
Fascism & Authoritarianism
Passmore, K. (2002). Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
Snyder, T. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Bodley Head.
Eatwell, R. & Goodwin, M. (2018). National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Pelican Books.
Toscano, A. (2023). Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis. Verso.
Reich, W. (1980). The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.
Miscellaneous/Unclassifiable
Bataille, G. (1985). Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939. University of Minnesota Press.
Fisher, M. (2018). Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction. Exmilitary.
Negarestani, R. (2008). Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials. re.press.
Moynihan, T. (2019). Spinal Catastrophism: A Secret History. Urbanomic.