Renata Salecl, _(Per)Versions of Love and Hate_ (Verso, œ---) Salecl has written a better book that the Writers and Readers volume _Lacan for Beginners_; unfortunately, she has not written one as good as the books of Slavoj Zizek or Judith Butler. In the last decade, a loosely affiliated group of Lacanian philosophers (of whom Salecl is one) have captivatingly recast a great deal of Marxist and other left theory. The method Salecl (and the others) takes in her writing is to read various familiar literary creations--books, movies, music, etc.--through the lens of Lacanian categories. Such reading, in turn, serves to illustrate a broad range of ideological and social experience. Salecl is at some points quite successful in this project, for example in her sparkling recapitulation of Adorno and Horkheimer's similar use of the _Odyssey_. However, at other points Salecl seems merely to rehearse Lacanian schemata--convincingly, certainly, but without transcending the specific literary work or Lacanian term illustrated. Where Salecl's book is its strongest--as alluded to by the lead-in comparisons--is as a cogent introduction to the whole range of Lacanian concepts; and its ideal reader is one seeking a readable introduction to the New Lacanians. David Mertz