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 Heartburn by Nora Ephron

I saw the Nora Ephron documentary, Everything is Copy, at MIFF earlier this year, and when I waxed lyrical at the office the next day about how much I enjoyed it, several of my co-workers impressed upon me just how wonderful her semi-autobiographical novel was.

Heartburn is a slim volume that’s as chatty and accessible as one of Ephron’s movies, but as whip-smart and acerbic as you’d imagine from the woman who wrote: ‘Summer bachelors, like summer breezes, are never as cool as they pretend to be.’ The story is ostensibly about what happens when the heavily pregnant Nora – ahem! – heavily pregnant Rachel discovers that her husband is having an affair, but really it’s about so much more: love, life, family and taking control of your own narrative, even when your story isn’t quite going to plan. I’m loving it.

Chris Gordon is reading Here I am by Jonathan Safran Foer

I’m calling it: Jonathon Safron Foer’s Here I am is one of the best books of the year.

The novel took Safron Foer 10 years to write and the result is a beautiful portrait of a family. I read sections of the book out loud to others. I cried and I laughed. I put the novel down at times and walked around thinking of metaphors and paradoxes. This is the story of one American Jew living his life as best, and as honestly, as he can within a framework of disappointment and a terrible world disaster. Pick up a copy and let yourself be taken into the world that Safron Foer has created.

Annie Condon is watching The Affair

In the past few weeks I’ve noticed customers buying the second season of The Affair with the same fervency the caffeine deprived buy lattes. Several aspects of this series intrigued me – the main character is a 40-something novelist, and the majority of the series is set in the beautiful seaside town of Montauk, three hours from New York. And the name – ‘The Affair’ – well it promises so much doesn’t it?! Deception, heartbreak, lies, secrets, discomfort and guilt.

I’m well into the second season now, and it’s an extremely well-written, taut psychological study. In addition to the affair, there’s also a murder thrown in for good measure, and details of this are revealed little by little in each episode. Another brilliant feature of this series is how it shows the same events from differing perspectives, whether it be from the perspective of two people involved in the affair, or their bewildered spouses.

Bronte Coates is reading Being a Beast by Charles Foster

The 2016 longlist for the UK’s most prestigious award for nonfiction writing (recently re-branded as the Baillie Gifford prize after being known as the Samuel Johnson prize since 1999) was announced earlier this week. I’m always interested in what gets nominated for this Prize as have been very impressed by quite a few of the books they’ve praised in the past – books such as Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk which won in 2015. This year’s longlist includes two titles I’ve already read and would highly recommend: Margo Jefferson’s Negroland and Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time. Both are brilliant, important reads about our world.

Scanning the longlist, another title also piqued my interest – Charles Foster’s Being a Beast.

A passionate naturalist, Foster wants to know what it’s like to ‘be a beast’ – and so he tries it out. He lives as a badger for six weeks, sleeping in a dirt hole and eating earthworms. He comes face to face with shrimps as he lives like an otter. He spends hours curled up in a back garden in East London and rooting in bins like an urban fox. I picked up a copy yesterday and am already entranced by Foster’s vivid, often very funny, account of his attempts. Point in case: ‘Wetsuits are condoms that prevent your imagination from being fertilised by mountain rivers.’ I really feel this sentence alone should inspire you to read this wonderfully weird book.