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.

Stella Charls is listening to podcasts

For me this has been the summer of public transport which means it’s also been the summer of podcasts. Since developing an addiction to Serial in 2014, I’m now hoarding recommendations for anything and everything worth listening to. When my colleague Nina put together a beginner’s guide to podcasts I was over the moon to learn that on WTF with Marc Maron I could listen to an hour-long interview with the person who tops my ‘strangers-I’d-love-to-be-friends-with’ list: Allie Bosch.

Allie is the blackly funny mind behind Hyperbole and a Half, a hugely successful blog which resulted in a book. Her comedy is dark and genuine – dramatic retellings of the mundane brought to life by naive drawings using Paint on her PC.

Boch’s extraordinary handling of her struggle with depression and anxiety is what really struck a chord with readers and I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that describes the experience of mental illness better than her two posts: ‘Adventures in Depression’ and ’Depression Part Two’. Her stories are deeply personal, capturing both the sense of exhaustion and hopelessness that comes with depression, but also offer a reminder that relief can come from unexpected places, like a shrivelled-up piece of corn found beneath the refrigerator. Trust me, you’ll never look at corn the same way again after reading these comics.

Listening to her interview, I was happy to hear that Allie the person is as honest and delightful as her blog and book. I immediately sat down and read the book again from cover to cover, and recommend it to anyone looking for a laugh as well as a healthy dose of perspective.

Chris Somerville is reading Loitering: New and Collected Essays by Charles D'Ambrosio

Currently it seems that essay collections are in vogue with my dirtbag friends and family which means I can now earnestly and full-heartedly discuss Charles D'Ambrosio with them. His essay collection, Loitering has just come out in Australia with Text publishing. D'Ambrossio’s previous small output includes one of the greatest short stories ever written (listen to a reading of the story on the New Yorker podcast here). I also think his latest short-story collection, The Dead Fish Museum, is one of the best to come out of America.

Loitering collects new essays alongside an older essay collection, Orphans, which has now gone out of print. The stories about his own family are a real highlight and will hopefully get people more interested in the work of a writer who is mostly unkown in this country.

Ford Thomas is reading Here by Richard McGuire

A 304 page expansion of a 6-page game-changing comic that first appeared 25 years ago in RAW, Here is one of those books that garners tons of hyperbolic praise but happily, it’s also one of those rare books that actually match, if not exceed, that praise. The book’s structure hinges on an unusual conceit – each page is a static shot of a lounge room with inset panels depicting the same shot through various times – but what could easily have become tired and diluted over such a vast number of pages instead feels remarkably clever, both effective and affective.

Here is highly readable and re-readable in segments or as a whole.

Bronte Coates is reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Don’t be put off by this terrible cover as I flat-out loved this book. It was exactly what I felt like reading this week.

Set is a future where environmental and economic crises has led to social chaos, Butler’s scarily believable vision of the future is revealed through the diary of Lauren Olamina, a strong-willed girl who lives with her family in a fragile gated community at the centre of the chaos. Olamina suffers from ‘hyperempathy’ (which means she experiences the perceived feelings of others) and is in the midst of developing her own religion. If you’re anything like me, both these things have you instantly intrigued. Butler is one of those author who I’ve heard a lot about but never read before. Now I’m hoping to read every single thing she’s ever written.

The week before this one, I read and loved Meghan Daum’s essay collection The Unspeakable, I mostly enjoyed (but wasn’t sold on) The Magicians by Lev Grossman and I’m half-way through On Immunity: an Inoculation by Eula Biss,