Summer is the ideal season for fun, frothy reads. On languorous weekends or hard-earned vacations, many people skew their literary diet toward lighter fare—fast-paced thrillers, steamy rom-coms—rather than, say, an in-depth history or an experimental novel.But fall is fast approaching. For some, that means a return to school; for many others, it represents the end of the most leisurely time of the year. Whether or not you’re heading back to the classroom, you may soon be tasked with, or else seek out, a more vigorous reading regimen; generally, the autumn months tend to require more from our brain. But it’s useful, as Labor Day approaches, to have an on-ramp—a way of easing into that more intense intellectual mode.These six books can help reacquaint the fall reader with the pleasures and demands of paying serious attention. Although none of them is especially strenuous—most are either brisk, bite-size, or divided into digestible parts—they are undeniably stimulating. Each will give your mind a much-needed burst of energy.The Age of Innocence, by Edith WhartonI came late to Wharton’s 1920 novel about a high-society love triangle in Gilded Age New York City—in fact, I read it only two months ago. I had gotten into my head that the writing would be too ornate for my liking, the settings and dialogue too stuffy. But classics tend to be classics for a reason, and The Age of Innocence snapped me out of my heat-induced inertia. Wharton’s witty, sophisticated sentences require and then amply reward sustained attention. Narrating the follies and frivolities of the city’s elite, she’s sarcastic and allusive, winking even as she dazzles with dialogue that verges on poetry. (The novelist Roxana Robinson once compared Wharton’s diction to a “sword wrapped in satin.”) Yet the universality of the novel makes it a perfect gateway for reengaging with foundational literature: Its core subjects are the timeless tensions between desire and obligation, and between self and society, expressed through a smoldering romance between forbidden lovers.Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa GabbertOne of the best entry points to rigorous reading is our own curiosity. Genuine interest is powerful; it can help readers move through the most daunting chapters or grasp even the most complicated ideas. As both a reader and a writer, Gabbert has always been guided by the compass of her inquisitiveness, perhaps never more so than in her wide-ranging third essay collection. The author’s sense of wonder stimulates the reader’s, and her primary subject—literature—may lead one to more invigorating reading. She is as erudite as she is earnest, and as she ponders Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, or the lives and work of Sylvia Plath and Rainier Maria Rilke, her passion becomes contagious. As she suggests in an essay about her classic-literature book club, it’s always worth finding time to have your own “intimate experience” with famous novels. Following the winding pathways of Gabbert’s mind might well show you to your next great read.[Read: The end of reading is here]Enough Is Enuf, by Gabe HenryFew books have made me laugh harder or more frequently than Henry’s exploration of the English language’s nonsensical writing system—one in which the spelling of words tells us precious little about how they’re pronounced—and the centuries of failed attempts to fix it. Enough Is Enuf chronicles some of the staunchest advocates of “simplified spelling” systems (including Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the dictionary maker Noah Webster), each of whom attempted to streamline the haphazard rules of written English—a uniquely weird amalgamation of other, older languages. Henry’s book sits at the nexus of linguistics and history—two subjects that can be daunting, in many cases making for dry reading—but it is brisk and entertaining, full of archival images, clarifying examples, and hilarious anecdotes. By its end, you’ll likely feel grateful for the miracle that is your own literacy and eager to read more about quirky characters, both human and lexicographic.Suppose a Sentence, by Brian DillonEach of the 27 short essays in this collection is inspired by a single sentence that captured Dillon’s imagination. For more than a quarter century, the critic has kept dozens of notebooks in which he copies down striking phrases he’s stumbled across. They vary widely in length, register, and complexity: the cascading clauses of Roland Barthes, a nine-word short-story opener by Susan Sontag, the prince of Denmark’s dying “O, o, o, o” in Hamlet. Each essay is a perfect introduction to its source material, providing both a hook (the sentence) and a primer (Dillon’s reflections) to an eclectic set of authors (who also include Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, and Hilary Mantel). Dillon’s notebook exercise, I might add, could be just the thing to re-attune one’s brain to the wonders of the written word.[Read: The adults who treat reading like homework]Practice, by Rosalind BrownBrown’s trim novel takes place over a single day in the life of Annabel, an Oxford undergrad who’s trying to write an essay about Shakespeare’s sonnets. The paper’s due tomorrow, and it’s not going well: She’s constantly interrupted by roving, unruly thoughts and a very demanding body (she’s hungry, now she’s horny, and now she’s gotta pee). She’d planned to stick to a rigid routine—a 6 a.m. wake-up, a distraction-free morning of work, a break to walk through campus—but is consistently derailed. (Who among us?) Flashes of insight come, but nothing sticks; the poems will not yield to her. As the deadline approaches, we get an intimate glimpse of a mind both at work and at war. Watching Annabel try to push her intellect past new limits may compel a reader to do the same—or perhaps just to read the novel with the same close attention she pays the sonnets. As for whether she finishes her essay on time, I’ll disclose no spoilers here.Guilty Pleasures, by Arielle ZibrakThe smutty hockey romance Heated Rivalry is passionately beloved, yet many of its fans admit to being embarrassed by their obsession with the TV series and novels that inspired it. (Ardent and committed lovers of other things—such as, say, hockey teams—tend not to feel the same way.) But Zibrak, an English professor at the University of Wyoming, insists that no novel, film, or show is more shameful, or less worth consuming, than any other is—and that even art dismissed as lowbrow has “much to tell us about ourselves and the world.” In this short, snappy tract, she confidently surveys the landscape of “guilty pleasures”—usually those written by, about, or for women—and unearths newfound complexity. She manages to cover the obscure 1850 best seller The Wide, Wide World as well as Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, along with critical essays from thinkers such as Hilton Als and Saidiya Hartman; each volume mentioned is worth tracking down. So are other volumes in the series this belongs to, NYU Press’s Avidly Reads.[Listen: A writer learns how to read again]