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.

Mark is reading A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren

I’ve been having a look through A Fighting Chance by Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren is considered the unacknowledged leader of the new progressive movement in US politics and people are speculating that this book is her manifesto for a tilt at the White House. She’s also an ex-Harvard Law professor and her specialty at the time was bankruptcy law, ostensibly a pretty dry subject. In the book, her research showed that, in the US, lots of bankruptcy cases involved middle and low income earners suckered into unsustainable loans by the financial institutions that were responsible for the GFC and who have largely gone unscathed. I’d recommend you read the title in conjunction with Hard Choices by another Presidential contender, Hillary Clinton (due in-store on 10 June).

I’ve also just read The Lost Child by Suzanne McCourt and was really impressed with this novel told from the point of view of its teenage protagonist. At first I thought, ‘here we go again; another cute coming of age story’… Not so! McCourt’s debut is a great book about family relationships and very satisfying.

Bronte is watching Adventure Time

This week I found time to read Maria Bustillos’s fantastic long essay on Adventure Time which a lot of people were raving about last week. The piece opens with, ‘ Adventure Time is a smash hit cartoon aimed primarily at kids age six to eleven. It’s also a deeply serious work of moral philosophy, a rip-roaring comic masterpiece, and a meditation on gender politics and love in the modern world.’ And from there, it only gets better. Whether or not you’re a fan of the series already I’d encourage you to also read the article because it’s a seriously good example of non-fiction writing. And afterwards, I’d recommend that you - as I myself did - settle down to watch a few episodes.

Nina is reading The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison

After glowing recommendations from Mark (“These revealing essays cover a wide spectrum of human experience”) and Bronte (“astonishing and moving”), I decided I should read The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison.

I’m only halfway through the second essay but I’m already impressed by the way she draws her ideas together, weaving her personal stories into a wider narrative. Her first essay details what it’s like to be a medical actor, paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose. It also examines Jamison’s own health issues, and her experience of acting out someone else’s pain vs. undergoing her own.

The second essay looks at Morgellons disease, a controversial condition where patients hold a delusional belief that they are infested with parasites. Jamison attends a conference of Morgellons sufferers. She isn’t interested in investigating whether or not the disease is real, but rather looking at how to emphasise with and understand the attendees: “Is it wrong to call it empathy when you trust the fact of suffering, but not the source? How do I inhabit someone’s pain without inhabiting their particular understanding of that pain?…The notion that Morgellon patients might be ‘making it up’ is more complicated than it seems.”

Jamison isn’t afraid to dig deeply into her subjects, questioning her own reactions and feelings. This is the perfect book to read if you are in the mood for reflective, intelligent non-fiction.