Style & Culture

The Best Books to Read This Summer

Page turners for the beach and beyond—all penned by women.
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One of the best things about summer is giving yourself permission to spend entire days—weeks even—doing little more than getting stuck in a towering stack of books. And while there are plenty of new releases out there just begging to be picked up, flipped through, and taken to the beach, this literary season is shaping up to be a particularly stellar one for books by female authors, both up-and-coming and long established. Whether you're looking for a memoir about horse racing in Mongolia or a fictional epic set in the 19th-century American West, there's something out there for every type of reader (and traveler). Keep reading for the best books by women to immerse yourself in this summer.

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  • Fleishman is in Trouble

    Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

    New York Times Magazine staff writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner has made a name for herself with her thoroughly entertaining, and often totally unforgiving, profiles of the world's most famous celebrities. Now, she's trying her hand at fiction and, so far, it's being incredibly well received. Following the chaotic life of freshly-divorced Toby Fleishman, Fleishman Is in Trouble spans Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Israel, and is packed with juicy, entertaining morsels (racy selfies) and thoughtful insights on modern marriage (how we communicate and, well, how we fail at it). What starts out as an entertaining divorce novel turns into something a lot deeper—just like her celebrity profiles.

    Buy now: amazon.com

  • City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

    Elizabeth Gilbert may be best known for her bestselling travel memoir Eat Pray Love, but she's also a dedicated fiction writer, having previously published novels like Stern Men and The Signature of All Things in addition to her acclaimed non-fiction. Her third and latest novel, City of Girls, is a rip-roaring journey through the New York theater world of the 1940s, following 19-year-old protagonist Vivian Morris as she navigates her own sexual awakening in a city hitting its stride. Eager to hear more? Tune in to the Women Who Travel podcast to listen to Gilbert discuss her writing process behind the book (and life after Eat, Pray, Love of course).

    Buy now: amazon.com

  • Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn

    Nicole Dennis-Benn first hit our radars in 2016 with her highly-lauded debut novel Here Comes the Sun, which looked at the complex, often agonizing relationships between mothers and daughters—and was deemed, in the best possible way, the ultimate "antibeach" read by The New York Times. In her follow-up, Dennis-Benn lets us in to the life of Patsy, a 28-year-old Jamaican woman who emigrates to the U.S., leaving her young daughter behind. It's an immigrant story, for sure, but also a story of love, reinvention, and motherhood, and the ways in which these themes are inextricable from the demands and vulnerabilities of being an immigrant in the U.S.

    Buy now: amazon.com

  • Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

    An extraordinary work of narrative non-fiction, Lisa Taddeo's Three Women is almost a decade in the making, the result of eight years spent embedding herself in the lives of Maggie, Lina, and Sloane, all everyday women living in the U.S. The book has already drawn comparisons to similar styles of journalism—Gay Talese and Truman Capote among them—thanks to its compelling levels of detail and page-turning, real life plot lines, but Taddeo's unflinching look at gender dynamics in 21st-century America also feels essential in a post-#MeToo world. Beach read this is not, but a lemme-just-read-one-more-chapter it absolutely is.

    Buy now: amazon.com

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  • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

    For anyone already familiar with New Yorker writer Jia Tolentino, this book release is a highly anticipated one. Out August 6, Tolentino's first collection of essays is filled with the sharp, witty, and candid observations about millennial life that we've come to expect from her—from a piece about ecstasy and the baptist church to a meditation on the time she appeared as a contestant on reality TV show Girls v. Boys: Puerto Rico. Read it by the pool, in a hammock, or on a deck, and then feel confident sounding off to your friends about how the Internet is corroding our lives.

    Pre-order now: amazon.com

  • Inland by Téa Obreht

    If you've already listened to our recent book-themed episode of Women Who Travel, then you'll know that Téa Obreht's second novel, Inland, ranks high on our list of summer must-reads. Set in the drought-ridden Arizona desert in 1893, the novel is packed with magic and myth as it tells the story of Nora, a frontierswoman who leaves her home base in search of water. It's set to be an immersive read wherever you are, but we suggest packing it for an epic road trip through the southwest.

    Pre-order now: amazon.com

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  • Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner

    Her twelfth novel, Jennifer Weiner's Mrs. Everything follows two generations of women, starting in 1951 and ending just a few years into the future, in 2022. The book is, in part, inspired by Weiner's own mother coming out as gay in her mid-50s, and charts the ups and downs of 20th- and- early- 21st-century womanhood: the lives we want to lead, the lives we're forced to lead, and all the heartbreaks and missed opportunities in between.

    Buy now: amazon.com

  • Rough Magic: Riding the World's Loneliest Horse Race by Lara Prior-Palmer

    Have you ever considered horse racing through Mongolia? Probably not. But Lara Prior-Palmer did, and lucky for us, she's written a memoir about it. Just 19 years old at the time, Prior-Palmer took part in the Mongol Derby, a ten-day, 621-mile semi-wild horse race that took her across some of the country's roughest terrains, and made it all the way to the finish line. Charming, self-aware, and mercifully devoid of clichés, it's just the sort of breezy travel memoir we've been looking for.

    Buy now: amazon.com

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  • Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

    Back in 2009, author Jean Kwok's brother disappeared while piloting a small plane from Texas to Virginia, and was found dead one week later. Now, a decade later, Kwok has channeled the pain and loss that followed into a new novel, which uses parts of her own story to weave a plot that takes us from China to the U.S. to the Netherlands. A thriller that explores issues of identity and family, more than one Traveler editor has already added it to their summer reading list.

    Buy now: amazon.com

TopicsBooks & Literature