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.

Emily Gale was absolutely floored by The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner and Golden Boys by Sonya Harnett

Two novels absolutely floored me this week: Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett and The Dead I Know by Scot Gardner. What they have in common is stunning prose, restraint, terrible things happening to innocent children, and a way of making those children the heroes of the story, revealing a profound dichotomy of strength and vulnerability. I think the stand-out difference between them for me was how I felt at the last sentence: devastated by Golden Boys, sad but somewhat hopeful about The Dead I Know. And perhaps, although this is too simplistic on its own, that’s one of the ways we distinguish between adult fiction and teenage fiction.

Stella Charls is reading The First Bad Man by Miranda July

My literary new year’s resolution was to finish what I start. Luckily I’ve started with Miranda July’s debut novel, The First Bad Man, and am seriously struggling to put it down. While I understand why her earnestness and hipster aesthetic polarises her audience, I remain a passionate fan of July’s. For me, her writing is inventive yet relatable; her characters are perverse yet celebrate what makes us normal.

In a recent interview with the New York Times July explains why she wanted The First Bad Man to be a ‘thriller’ and it’s definitely an energetic, consistently surprising read. I’m laughing aloud on almost every page, and I also care deeply for the novel’s middle-aged, mousy narrator Cheryl. I’m worried about how the story may end for her.

Nina Kenwood is reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels

I spent my holidays reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. I know, I know, you’re sick of hearing about them. We just wrote an entire post about the books, with ten Readings staff endorsing them, and we’ve written about them many, many times before that. And yet, I know there are people like me out there, people who have resisted and resisted reading these books. My colleague Bronte first told me about them more than a year ago. I nodded along to her enthusiastic recommendations, smiled through her insistence that I would love them, avoided her eye when she asked me if I had considered reading them yet. I had My Brilliant Friend sitting by my bed for over 12 months before I read it. Just the sight of it made me feel guilty. The Ferrante novels became like The Wire to me; everyone is horrified when you say you haven’t watched it/read it, and you know you absolutely should, but they loomed too large, too serious, too much like hard work. ‘I’ll read them over summer’, I kept saying. Then summer came, and I had to tackle them.

As it turns out, these novels are not hard work. They are very literary, yes, but so addictive and absorbing. I tore through them, one after the other, in the same way I gulped down The Hunger Games series, or the Harry Potters. I fell into Ferrante’s world, and I fell in love with it. These books are so deliciously good. I’m already certain that Ferrante is going to be my favourite writer of 2015.