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.

Chris Gordon is reading Sunbathing by Isobel Beech

There is a passage half way through the novel of Sunbathing where Isobel is walking up the Rucker’s Hill in Northcote with friends. They stop to look over the roof tops, over the trees to the city. Such a wonderful iconic Melbourne scene.

Isobel Beech’s debut novel is full of these moments where you recognise the setting, or the conversation or the feeling. Somehow through great deftness of hand and the art of remaining truthful, Isobel has taken a deeply personal tragic event in her life and allowed us all to be seen, allowed us to be heard and considered.

This is a generous novel about friendship, about grief and about being the best you can be. I found it a profound reading experience.

Member of the Teen Advisory Board Bonnie is reading The Museum of Broken Things by Lauren Draper

A book about death but it’s happy? This debut YA novel follows 18-year-old Reece entering a new town with some hidden secrets. We follow Reece as she navigates through her final year at school in an immersive beach town. This is a beautiful story about grief, reconciliation, unsolved mysteries and finding your ‘found family’. Would highly recommend!

Lucie Dess is listening to Dance Fever by Florence + The Machine

I have had Dance Fever on repeat since its release! It’s Florence Welch’s most personal lyrics yet and I just can’t stop listening. Particularly to the first track, King.

This is Welch’s lockdown record, which is coincidentally about a different sort of plague. Choreomania is the third track on the album and is inspired by ‘choreomania’, the medieval European “dancing plague,” wherein hordes of people would flail and twitch until they reached exhaustion, injury, or death. Florence became obsessed with the concept and a week after she started working on the album, Covid hit!

The album is produced by Jack Antoff who is one of my favourite producers (he works with Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Lorde) so obviously I was always going to love it! This is a must listen!