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.

Leanne Hall is reading Three Daughters of Madame Liang by Pearl S. Buck

It’s been on my mind for a while that I should read Pearl S. Buck – a Nobel Prize-winning American author who wrote prolifically about China – so imagine how pleased I was to discover an out-of-print hardcover edition of Three Daughters of Madame Liang in a Mount Waverley Op Shop recently!

Buck was uniquely positioned as a Westerner writing about the East. She was bilingual and spent much of her early life and career in China, living there during several critical historical events including the Boxer Rebellion and the Nanking Incident. She’s best known for her epic novel and Pulitzer Prize winner, The Good Earth (which was made into a Hollywood film featuring my minor obsession Anna May Wong), but I’m very glad the lesser-known Three Daughters of Madame Liang has landed in my lap. The book is set in the early years of Communist rule, and woven around the story of Madame Liang, the proprietor of an exclusive Shanghai restaurant, and her returning foreign-educated daughter, Grace, is some sharp political commentary and history. It’s eminently readable, a fascinating window into a time and place, and a very sympathetic portrait of the lives of Chinese women.

Jan Lockwood is reading The Martian by Andy Weir

I was lucky enough to get away to the sun recently and my stand out holiday read was The Martian by Andy Weir. This is the story of an astronaut, Mark Watney, stranded on Mars and believed dead, and his incredible struggle for daily survival and to be rescued.

Told largely from Watney’s perspective via his personal log, The Martian had me totally engaged from start to finish. The movie was nominated in the comedy category in the 2016 Golden globes but I found the book in the science fiction section, and I reckon it fits comfortably in both camps. Yes, there are a lot of highly technical parts to this book which, to my surprise, I found utterly absorbing. But most of all I loved Watney’s ingenuity, his never-say-die attitude, and his sense of humour. I think he may be my new favourite literary character.

Lian Hingee is reading The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

It has been a long wait for this book. A long wait. I was one of those poor saps who picked up the first book in The Passage trilogy back when it first came out – which means I’ve been waiting for six years to find out what happens. I made the decision to re-read the previous two books before I cracked the cover on the third, and was glad I did as I found Cronin’s world just as compelling the second time around.

Taking place 20 or so years after the last book, mankind has returned to a kind of normalcy in The City of Mirrors. People are building towns, getting married, having babies, and working towards the future. But for Peter and the remaining members of the group that brought about the destruction of the virals, there’s an uneasiness to this fragile peace, along with an unspoken understanding that the battle hasn’t been won yet.

As with the first two books, The City of Mirrors is a slow burn, steadily building with each page. The first half is imbued with a creeping dread that kept me on the edge of my seat; I wanted to shake the residents of Kerrville out of their comfortable bubbles, tell them to fix the lights, fortify the walls, and prepare for the coming storm. This literary vampire series is a must for anyone who loves a good story.