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.

Amy is reading All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews

I stumbled upon a blurb and review for this novel online yesterday. The review said the novel, ‘reads as if it has been wrenched from [the author’s] heart’. There was something about the synopsis and this impression of the writing that had me heading immediately for the new release shelf to retrieve a copy for myself.

The blurb does indeed suggest a heart-wrenching dilemma at the centre of the novel: Elf and Yoli are two smart, loving sisters. Elf is a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yoli is divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. So far, only a couple of chapters in, I have the feeling of settling into an intimate and fraught story about family, love and adulthood – I realised that the idea of ‘working well’ was a relative one for us and that in the context of our present lives my mother was right, it was absolutely fine, no problem – and of being enveloped by writing that is pleasurable in its steady, quiet, gentleness. I think this one is going to stay with me.

Robbie is reading The Dismal Science by Peter Mountford

This is Mountford’s second novel and is an absolute gem. It concerns Vincenzo D'Orsi, a middle-aged Italian economist, Vice President at the World bank, who suddenly and quite publicly quits his job – only to find his face, and claims about American political interference, splattered throughout the world’s press. His phone rings constantly, and the scope of what Vincenzo has done quickly scrapes away the veneer of respectability, competence and assuredness that he has taken for granted.

This is a spectacularly well-written book, filled with the insight and truth about the nature of what we tell ourselves is important and what turns out to actually be important. I am stunned Mountford is not a huge name in literature, and am sure he will be. I haven’t been so heartened by a work of literature since Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. Not to suggest any comparisons – Mountford is straight down the line – but I can’t get enough of him and can’t wait to read his first book. It is quite a feat that a book about the annihilation of a man’s sense of self can be so gratifying, and I am quite sure I’ve stumbled across someone that feels like the next big thing.

Forget Franzen – Mountford is absolutely the real deal. Read the book, come and see me, let’s talk about it and perhaps I’ll have to eat my hat. What the hell I reckon – my hat’s on the line.

Nina is reading The Children Act by Ian McEwan

I skipped the last few Ian McEwan novels – not for any particular reason, mostly because I never felt compelled to read them. But as soon as I heard the plot of The Children Act – a High Court judge is called on to try an urgent case of a seventeen-year-old boy refusing medical assistance for religious reasons – I was interested. The book is short and sharp, providing a fascinating slice of life of a no-nonsense judge who encounters ethical dilemmas every day in her work. I am almost finished, and I can truly say I have no idea where these final few chapters are going but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

You can read a longer (and better!) review of the book here.

Bronte is reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I’ve loved Jaclyn Moriarty’s books for years. Feeling Sorry for Celia is the first book I remember laughing out loud at while standing in a bookshop and I still buy all her books (including an adult and young adult version of the same story). Yet, for some reason, her sister Liane (who is a bestselling author and a bit of a sensation in America) has never been on my radar. Until now…

Following a group of parents whose children are just starting kindergarten, Big Little Lies is completely addictive – I seriously couldn’t put this book down, even going so far to read while walking to and from my tram stop. It’s very, very funny in places, shockingly dark in others, and I’m looking forward to reading my way through Liane’s backlist.