Women on the edge, in motion, or in revolt: the summer reading list curated by Charlotte Casiraghi explores the fragile power of choosing your own path.
Charlotte Casiraghi, spokesperson and ambassador for Chanel, has once again turned to literature to curate a reading list that is both intimate and political. Her Summer Readings selection for the house focuses on four novels where women face decisive thresholds in their lives, pushed forward by a visceral need to break free. Written by Edith Wharton, Marion Brunet, Claire-Louise Bennett and Katie Kitamura, these books create a collective portrait of female autonomy in the face of social constraint.
In ‘The House of Mirth’, Edith Wharton casts a critical gaze on the artifice and cruelty of early 20th century New York’s upper class. Her protagonist, Lily Bart, is both participant and victim of a game ruled by appearances. What makes the novel compelling today is how Wharton’s dissection of social performance still resonates with modern questions of value, gender and visibility.
With ‘Summer of Reckoning’, Marion Brunet plunges us into the suffocating heat of the French countryside, where a family’s fragile balance collapses under the weight of unspoken trauma. Her writing is sharp and unsentimental, offering a stark view of generational disillusionment and buried rage.
In ‘Checkout 19’, Claire-Louise Bennett traces the life of a woman shaped by literature, thought and solitude. The novel is a quiet ode to intellectual becoming, where reading and writing are not just practices but acts of resistance and self-creation.
Finally, ‘Intimacies’ by Katie Kitamura follows a court interpreter drawn into the psychological murk of power and language. Through spare, rhythmic prose, Kitamura exposes how ambiguity—emotional, political, linguistic—can become a site of tension and revelation.
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