Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films and TV shows we’re watching, and the music we’re listening to.

Mark Rubbo is reading On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong

I’m reading an advance copy of Jock Serong’s third novel. Set in the near future, an asylum seeker boat capsizes and sinks near a remote island, coincidentally where an Australian tourist boat is safely anchored. It’s three days from a tight Federal election and the government – who has outsourced Border Protection to a murky company – doesn’t want to help or let anyone know about what’s happened, even though there has been huge loss of life and more are in imminent danger. With this book, Serong cements his growing reputation as the thinking person’s adventure writer. On the Java Ridge is such a strong piece of writing on so many levels. Andrew Bolt would hate it!

Bronte Coates is reading The Long Goodbye by Anna Krien

Anna Krien is one of my favourite writers. Her books are engaged, passionate, galvanising, and they always makes me care more about the world around me than I did before reading them. A few years ago, I read and loved her Quarterly Essay, Us and Them, which grappled with the ever-changing relationship between humans and animals. So I’ve been hanging out for her second contribution to the series.

The Long Goodbye digs into Australia’s climate wars, peeling back the curtain of political rhetoric to investigate what’s really going on. Krien’s research is meticulous and compelling. What she reveals is grim and definitely made me feel despondent in place. I felt especially worried about the misinformation being circulated by people in positions of power. I grew up in central Queensland and it’s frightening to imagine what destruction the Adani Mine is capable of, not just to the environment but also to the lives of people who live there. As with most Quarterly Essays, Krien doesn’t give us answers in this book, but rather seeks to provide us with launching pads for further conversations and hopefully action too. The Long Goodbye feels completely necessary and urgent.

Jo Case is watching the new season of Twin Peaks

This week, I’ve been too busy thinking about Twin Peaks to concentrate on anything not related to it in my lesisure time. I even played the Twin Peaks soundtrack in our Doncaster shop on Monday morning, to prepare myself for that night’s episode. I’d forgotten how affecting Angelo Badalamenti’s score is, even apart from Lynch’s on-screen images: that layering of light and dark, of beauty and dread, calm and disquiet.

Of course, then I was completely blown away by episode eight when I got home and settled on the couch, in the dark, and lost myself in Lynch’s self-contained imaginative world and his painterly vision. In the nightmare dreamscape of the second half of that episode, Lynch’s atomic Big Bang gave us a twin origin story for the evolution of evil in the Twin Peaks/Red Room universe – and in the nuclear, post-war age, in which an act of large-scale deliberate destruction cemented American world dominance.

The best piece of cultural criticism I’ve read since I can remember is this take on the episode by a critic I’m slightly obsessed with, the Pulitzer-shortlisted New York Magazine TV writer Matt Zoller-Seitz (co-author, with Alan Sepinwall, of the excellent TV (The Book)). Treat yourself.

Nina Kenwood is watching The Big Sick

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to go to an advance screening of The Big Sick, an indie rom-com created by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, and based on their real life relationship story. The movie is hilariously funny, deeply moving and an all round delight. It will probably end up being my favourite movie of the year. It’s out in cinemas in August, and I highly recommend everyone pre-orders tickets to opening weekend right now.

In podcast recommendations, other than Readings podcast of course, I’ve really enjoyed the new episode of Witch Please, a podcast about Harry Potter by two feminist scholars. Their most recent episode discussed their reactions to seeing the production of the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child play, and how it compared to reading the play script. It gave me a completely different understanding of the work, and I found it an utterly fascinating discussion.

While we’re on the topic of Harry Potter, I implore you to look at the adorable photos from our fantastic Harry Potter trivia night earlier this week. Harry Potter fans are the Best People.