Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Book

Let's start with that first section, the one about torture. Essential reading, absolutely essential, thought-provoking reading, and a piece of critical theory in its best, most provocative, and most lucid tradition, that of Foucault, Adorno, and Barthes.

Then we get into the section on war. Not as interesting, but still serviceable.

Then there's some biblical stuff. Same.

Then there's a truly appalling discourse on Marx, which is the worst sort of Marxist writing, in that it completely abandons Marx's materialist grounding and shoots off into this awful, floaty Hegelian idealism that almost reads like parody.

From the good to the awful, that's The Body in Pain. The good definitely outweighed the bad, as I'll simply forget the bad, but I'll remember the good for being solid gold.