The 5 Best Books for Brooklyn’s Topless Book Club
Gigi and The Cat by Colette
These two novellas are perfect for a book club, especially a topless one, because both deal with themes of female empowerment and both deal with the issue of the female body as property not only of men, but also of society as a whole. And because both stories focus so strongly on women’s issues, I think they would lead to lively discussions and a healthy amount of internal book club dissent. Plus, you’d get to talk about that scene where Gigi goes through Aunt Alicia’s jewelry, which is one of my favorite parts, evocative as it is of the Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Gemstones aka my favorite place in the entire world. And then when reading “The Cat,” your book club can discuss whether or not it is inherently cruel for a man to tickle a woman. I say yes, and I think Colette agrees with me based on this passage in the story, “‘There’s nothing to laugh about!’ cried Camille. ‘I’ve always been told that men who tickle women are vicious. They might even be sadists.'”