Each week our wonderful staff share the books and music that they've been enjoying.

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Tracy Hwang is reading It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken

I’m reading Anne de Marcken’s It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, one of the joint winners of the second Novel Prize. Given that the inaugural Novel Prize gave us Jessica Au’s unforgettable Cold Enough for Snow, I was really looking forward to what the second round would give us.

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over explores the deathless reality of a nameless woman through the afterlife as she loses body parts and adopts a dead crow that nests in her chest. So far it’s absurd, funny and sad. A combination I seem to love and seek out quite often lately. The fragmentary vignettes are almost stream of consciousness and that doesn’t always work for me but it’s really working for me with this book. Keen to see how it ends, but also not because then it’ll be over (it won’t last forever) and I’m enjoying it so much.

Joanna Di Mattia is reading How to Be Somebody Else by Miranda Pountney

I picked up this book just before Christmas without knowing anything about it. I liked the cover design which included an endorsement from one of my favourite writers, Tessa Hadley. I had few expectations, but I was seriously impressed from the first few pages. Featuring a cast of messy people – of all ages – Pountney’s debut novel might seem to traverse well-worn terrain, but like the best of Hadley’s work it’s deeply attuned to emotional details and is strikingly written.

Thirty-eight-year-old Dylan decides to walk out of her NYC advertising job and sublet her apartment to housesit for an artist with a cat in another corner of the city. She thinks she might have time to write and live somewhat anonymously, which is news to her friends and her West Coast boyfriend. One night, at a party thrown by her new neighbours, Dylan meets Gabe – he’s married, but as he tells her, it’s not really a thing. What transpires between them is much darker and more intense than my description here makes it potentially sound. How to Be Somebody Else is a very smart and sexy novel with a capricious protagonist propelled by both anxiety and desire, which curiously are conditions it also effects in the reader – it got under my skin, it shook me up, I couldn’t put it down. I’m glad I picked it up to begin with.

Kim Gruschow is reading The Only Way to Make Bread by Cristina Quintero (illustrated by Sarah Gonzales)

The Only Way to Make Bread is a dynamic picture book book that captures the unmatched sensory joys of baking bread better than any title in our cooking section. The pictures are adorable and the book showcases an exciting array of breads with recipes included for Arepas and Pandesal; breads from the author and illustrator's own cultures. I couldn't wait to knead some dough  after reading this. Regardless of your age, taking a moment to appreciate a stunning picture book next time you are feeling stuck and uninspired can be a real balm.