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.

Bronte Coates is reading Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich (translated by Keith Gessen)

Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich was awarded last year’s Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time’. This past week I’ve been reading her work for the first time and it’s stunningly powerful.

Voices from Chernobyl is an oral history of the notorious nuclear disaster of 1986 – an event that’s still clouded by misinformation even now. To read about this significant event (one I know next to nothing about) through the words of the people who were there is incredibly humbling. The stories of their lives before and after the disaster are devastating, gripping; I don’t know how anyone could read a work like this and not feel moved. While it’s a difficult book to get through, it also feels like necessary reading. I’m already intending to read more of Alexievich’s work, starting with her most recent release in English: Secondhand Time is an oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia.

Stella Charls is reading The Lonely City by Olivia Laing

I adored Olivia Laing’s new book. Laing artfully blends travel writing, art criticism and memoir, and the result is simultaneously a fascinating analysis of a string of visual artists, and a moving, personal account of living with loneliness, both online and in a crowded city like New York. I wrote about ways in which Laing explores the connection between loneliness and creativity in my review, but there are so many layers to Laing’s book that I’m finding myself still thinking about The Lonely City more than a month after reading it.

I’ve spent hours googling images of the artwork Laing reflects on (Edward Hopper’s paintings, David Wojnarowicz’s ‘Arthur Rimbaud in New York’ series, Zoe Leonard’s ‘Strange Fruit’) and the YouTube videos that Laing writes about watching on repeat in her tiny New York sub-let (Klaus Nomi’s first appearance at Irving Plaza, or documentaries about internet entrepreneur Josh Harris). I’ve poured over Wojnarowicz’s devastating autobiographical graphic novel, 7 Miles a Second, written during the last years before his AIDS-related death, which is up there with the most heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful work I’ve ever read.

Next on my TBR pile is Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto, a new edition of which has been recently released with an introduction by Avital Ronell. Solanas is a fascinating character, often dismissed as the crazy woman who shot Andy Warhol, but Laing writes about her with a tenderness and empathy that led me to consider her in a new light. I’m curious to read more.

Isobel Moore is reading A Year of Good Eating by Nigel Slater

This week I’ve been lulling myself to sleep in the best possible way with Nigel Slater’s A Year of Good Eating – part cookbook, and part beautiful, deliciously-detailed musings on food.

I’m not much of a home cook and, even though I love eating, I’m not exactly a foodie either (I’m perfectly content with eating for nourishment’s sake the majority of the time). So I didn’t particularly think that this cookbook would be my flavour of jam (food pun!) but I picked it up for two reasons. First, I spent some time with Slater a few years ago when he came by the bookshop I was working at to sign about a million books and he was delightfully charming. And secondly, I recently came across A Year of Good Eating in our Bargain table, so I knew I could be curious about his writing for a very reasonable price. And I am LOVING it.

Slater is unpretentious and funny, and his writing is so personable that it feels like I’m sitting at his kitchen bench with a big cup of tea, listening to him natter away while I snack on whatever he puts in front of me. Reading about food can either make you feel hungry or sated, and this is certainly the latter. The added bonus is that it feels so very British (as am I!) but rather than making me homesick, this cookbook makes me feel like I’m taking a little holiday home by reading it. The book is laid out like a diary and I’ve been reading one month each night, right before I turn my light out to sleep. It’s the perfect bedtime story.