On Friday NYT Cooking columnist and newsletter king Sam Sifton asked for recommendations of books by women. We have some suggestions, in a format we hope he’ll recognize.

Hopefully this late summer finds you lounging on the dock at some lake house you’ve cadged an invitation to visit, or rising early to drive to the nearest body of water for one last serving of sun and swimming. You’ve got a weekend menu to suit your August agenda: an early morning egg-and-cheese on the road for the journey. (You’ll make up for eating on the go the next day, with lemon ricotta pancakes, served up after a nice late slumber.) For lunch why not serve up some buttermilk fried chicken, perfect on a picnic blanket, or, if you find yourself relaxing at home, at the kitchen table, with some Emmylou Harris on the speakers.

But what to read in between all these trips to the beach and boulangerie? Nothing complements that late-August feeling, when the need to enjoy summer becomes downright urgent, than a brand-new book, and if it was written by a woman, so much the better. For something with that new book smell, try Jami Attenberg’s complex and charming All Grown Up, a story with a sometimes prickly character whose dry humor makes it go down as easy as a half dozen oysters. Or Weike Wang’s debut novel Chemistry, a story of love, science, and indecision. Perhaps you want a break from the format of the novel, and why not? Try Eve Ewing’s forthcoming Electric Arches, a mix of essay, poetry, and visual art that will leave you spinning, as if you’d read Claudia Rankine’s Citizen (tell me you have already read Citizen, if not then skip the rest and head straight to your bookseller to grab a copy) and then turned a cartwheel and looked through a kaleidoscope.

But these new books deal with contemporary life in America—and maybe you’d like your weekend read to take you further afield. How about a trip into the heart of the Amazon with Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder, or a whirlwind tour of the last few decades of India’s history with Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness? Or to travel through both space and time, try Lily King’s Euphoria, which will send you to the South Pacific and back in time about 75 years, in a story inspired by the anthropological and personal exploits of Margaret Mead.

Maybe the weekend vibe you’re after calls for something other than realism altogether. Carmen Maria Machado’s story collection Her Bodies and Other Parties is sexy and supernatural. Or Diane Cook’s surreal Man v. Nature, which a friend just described to me as a collection of worlds “where humans do animal things, and vice versa.” If you’re up for moving past the uncanny and into the truly dystopian, people have been talking about Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale quite a lot; Lidia Yuknavitch’s Book of Joan and Louise Erdrich’s forthcoming Future Home of the Living God will also trouble your sweet vacation sleep, if that’s the flavor you’re after.

As we turn the sharp corner from summer into fall, it’s a time of particular succulence and plenty. Luckily women are publishing books all year round.

—Rachel Riederer