Five gripping reads worth talking about

Summer’s also about sitting around a table with friends, or on a café patio, perhaps, talking about life, current affairs and the latest movies. Here are five books that will make you the life of your cultural conversations.

We Were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler Feminism has been a hot topic lately with celebrities and writers all weighing in and trying to define what it means to the millennial generation.

In this book — subtitled From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl (which is a registered trademark), The Buying and Selling of a Political Movement — Zeisler, who founded Bitch Media, talks about how pop culture has watered feminism down, turning it into a trend. She explores how we can rediscover the movement’s real power.

Brown by Kamal Al-Solaylee Kamal Al-Solaylee has written one of the most important books to come out of Toronto this year — on the meaning of being brown. The Ryerson university professor looks at his own experiences, but also casts a wider eye to the global experience. So often, people of brown skin are defined in the black/white paradigm where, really, “to be brown is to be on the cusp of whiteness and the edge of blackness.” A fascinating read no matter what your ethnicity.

The View from the Cheap Seats by Neil Gaiman The prolific British author always has lots to say and, in this collection, of essays and other non-fiction pieces he says it with his usual style — showing that very smart can also be acces- sible. He talks about writers and writing, sure, but also being at the 2010 Academy Awards, takes a look at influences including Ray Bradbury (of The Twilight Zone fame), Batman and Dr. Who, and even, on a more serious note, the plight of Syrian refugees. A book to read, think about and talk about.

This is London by Ben Judah Here is a book Torontonians will be able to relate to — and one that will help refill your book pile at the end of the summer when it comes out. London deserves a new look is the premise, and journalist Ben Judah sets out to illustrate what the city is now: a multicultural population living amongst English architecture and history. It may be the city of William Blake but it’s also the city of Nahla, a super-rich Egyptian girl, and poorer immigrants from Romania Pakistan, Poland, Afghanistan.

At The Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell So you think philosophy is dead, or even just dry? Sarah Bakewell puts paid to that notion with this look at the oh-so-cool crowd of the 1930s.

You know, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Raymond Aron, along with Albert Camus, Iris Murdoch, Martin Heidegger, et al.

Imagine hanging out at a café drinking cocktails with this group — Bakewell did and this is an enjoyable reintroduction to existentialism, which Bakewell insists changed lives and still can.