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.

Baz Ozturk is reading Either/Or by Elif Batuman

I’m currently immersed in Selin’s world at Harvard, in this follow-up to The Idiot.

I am one of those readers who loves nerdy books about books, and Either/Or is definitely one of them. In fact Selin is one of the most bookish characters I’ve ever read, and it’s fun to be with her as she muses and asks questions about the books and authors she reads, as well as about love, living an aesthetic versus an ethical life, the inanity of structured conceptions of the world, and much more. Batuman is incredibly erudite, and the narrative moves at a pleasantly brisk pace. So far so good!

Clare Millar is reading On the Line by Joseph Ponthus

I’ve been back into audiobooks lately, especially short ones! This prompted to me to listen to On the Line, which has been on my reading list since it came out early last year.

Joseph Ponthus writes in verse as a sort of non-fiction, sort of auto-fiction exploration of his time with a temp agency in which he works shifts in fish factories and abattoirs in Brittany. The production lines are repetitive, exhausting, and stressfully bureaucratic, not knowing whether the agency will place him in another factory with short notice. Each shift, he dreams of his life of literature, and of going home to his wife, who he now barely sees due to their opposite schedules.

This is an interesting and intellectual book about work and labour, death and killing animals, consumption, and desire for something better than capitalism. I found myself wishing this had a clearer conclusion, but it was still a compelling read.