Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on or the music we’re loving.

Gerard Elson is reading The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing by Nicholas Rombes

After a promising beginning, I was ultimately frustrated by film scholar Nicholas Rombes’ first work of literary fiction. The novel finds a journalist travelling to a remote location to interview a rare film librarian about a selection of destroyed films by prominent cult directors. It’s a great set-up for a metafictive, cinephilic noir. But Rombes’ prose, in its straining to manufacture doom, too often breaks the spell. His allegory, furthermore, was either too opaque, or too gallingly obvious (though it is perhaps to the novel’s credit that I can’t quite tell which). Still, if the cultivation of slowly accreting quasi-apocalyptic dread is your thing, or imagined histories are, or film theory or underground cinema, or Bolaño or DeLillo, or you like vaguely unnerving novels where dudes just talk – one on transmit, the other on receive – in desolate hotels, perhaps you should give this a look.

Nina Kenwood is reading She’s Having Her Baby by Lauren Sams

I was looking for a light summer read that was smart and entertaining, and this debut Australian novel hit the spot perfectly. Set in Sydney, She’s Having Her Baby is a fun, very readable novel about female friendships, the changing nature of the magazine industry and the often fraught decision of whether or not to have children. I spent a lovely afternoon in the sun being swept along by the story, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Note: I read an advance copy. She’s Having Her Baby will be released in March and is available to pre-order now).

Kara Nicholson is reading Double Entry by Jane Gleeson-White

I’ve been wanting to read Six Capitals by Jane Gleeson-White because I love the subheading: How accountants can really save the planet. The blurb mentions her previous book Double Entry which has an equally intriguing subheading: How the merchants of Venice shaped the modern world – and how their invention could make or break the planet. So, I’m starting with Double Entry and absolutely loving reading about the connection between Renaissance developments in mathematics and our modern economic system which is causing the destruction of the planet. Though I can’t wait to finish it and finally get stuck in to Six Capitals.