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.

Lian Hingee is reading Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman

I was lucky enough to score an advance reading copy of Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, which is the first in a new trilogy by Alison Goodman. It’s a fascinating mash-up of two of the most reviled genres in literature – fantasy and regency romance – which are, coincidentally, two of my guilty pleasures. Described as Jane Austen meets Buffy, it’s the story of Lady Helen whose major concerns in life are managing to curtsey properly without wobbling, improving her needlework, and finding a suitor for whom her forty-thousand-pound dowry is enough to overlook a scandalous family history. But when she catches the attention of the notorious (also tall, dark and handsome) Lord Carlston her world is turned upside down. He reveals to her that there are predatory creatures who walk amongst them, disguised as humans, and the only people who can fight them are the Reclaimers: members of a shadowy guild called the Dark Days Club… of which Lady Helen is the newest member.

If you like your romance with a bit of action, your fantasy with a bit of romance, or your YA with its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek then I’d high recommend giving Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club a whirl.

Alan Vaarwerk is watching and reading Jessica Jones

Netflix’s Jessica Jones series is as brilliant as everyone says it is – a smart, nuanced take on the superhero genre that is as gripping as it is unsettling, with a truly excellent cast of characters and interesting things to say about abusive relationships. Since finishing the series I’ve not wanted to leave Jones’ world, so have moved on to Brian Michael Bendis’ Alias comics, on which the TV series is based. Alias takes on different cases, and delves deeper into Jones’ past as a costumed crimefighter and her interactions with other Marvel superheroes, but otherwise I’m pleasantly surprised to see that the TV and comic Jessicas are very similar, making for an easy transition between the two, and a welcome opportunity to spend more time with this character.

Elke Power is reading Unfinished Business: Women; Men; Work; Family by Anne-Marie Slaughter

Anne-Marie Slaughter’s 2012 article in the Atlantic, ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’, was, and remains, controversial. It is one of the most-read articles in the Atlantic’s 150 year history. Slaughter’s new book Unfinished Business, expands upon and goes well beyond the article and will no doubt also divide readers – in the way that any writing about paid work and families inevitably does.

Slaughter is an articulate and engaging thinker, and while she is clearly driven to share her thoughts, experiences and research from a recognition that these real and challenging issues need to be addressed, she is neither prescriptive nor presumptuous. Like Annabel Crabb’s superb The Wife Drought, Unfinished Business is directed at people with an interest in finding genuine solutions to the complexities of managing and recognising all work and caregiving responsibilities – paid and unpaid.

One of the many interesting things about Anne-Marie Slaughter is her willingness to examine how her own ideas and expectations change. Within the first few pages of Unfinished Business, Slaughter writes that if she were to publish the article now, she would give it a different title. It is fascinating to read about what she learned from other people’s responses to her article – among her peers, those she looks up to, and those who look up to her.

Slaughter is not afraid to admit when her assumptions didn’t match her experiences or when her views have altered; likewise, she is always clear that she writes from a specific position of privilege and she does not claim to speak for all, or even most, women or parents.

Unfinished Business is a valuable contribution to a fraught and important discussion, especially at a time when one of the most numerous generations in history is approaching older age and most parents to children of care-requiring age need to undertake paid work. As with The Wife Drought, it is significant that Unfinished Business is not a book aimed solely at women – the writers take all caregivers, and the culturally created barriers to balance that they face, seriously because these are not women’s issues, these are societal and economic issues that affect us all.

Stella Charls is reading the first issue of Lunch Lady

Disclaimer: I am not a parent, nor do I have plans to be any time soon. But Lunch Lady, a new quarterly magazine from the creators of frankie, Smith Journal and SPACES, has turned me into an enthusiastic, clucky mess.

I’ve been following Kate Berry’s blog about food and family for some months now. Kate publishes delicious, simple recipes and writes about being a mother in a blended family with such warmth and humour. (Her partner Rohan Anderson is the author of two wonderful cookbooks that I highly recommend, Whole Larder Love and A Year of Practiculture.) Recently, Kate was approached by the We Print Nice Things publishing team to turn her blog into a print magazine.

I can now report that their first issue is one of the loveliest things I’ve had the pleasure to hold in my hands and flip through. It’s truly a celebration of the printed object – beautifully bound, with gorgeous paper stock and colour palette, plus some stickers designed by Beci Orpin to decorate your bananas with (of course). Inside there’s interviews with creative parents, personal essays, and seasonal recipes. Lunch Lady is perfect reading for me this time of the year, when summoning the energy to keep going with a 300+ page novel can feel challenging.

Bronte Coates is reading Clancy of the Undertow by Christopher Currie

I’ve been reading a bunch of Australian YA fiction this year and the latest addition to my list is Christopher Currie’s Clancy of the Undertow. I’ve heard great things about this novel from colleagues – notably that Clancy has a wicked sense of humour, and that Currie’s depiction of the small town she lives in feels remarkably true-to-life – so I’m looking forward to starting it this weekend.

On the topic of Australian YA fiction… Here is a guide to some of the best YA books written by Australian authors in 2015.