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.

Mike Shuttleworth is reading A Brief Take on the Australian Novel by Jean-François Vernay

The French writer and academic Jean-François Vernay has done a tremendous service to Australian readers and writers.

A Brief Take on the Australian Novel gives us a brisk 200 year tour of the preoccupations and patterns of Australian writing. Jean François might be French in origin but fear not, dear reader: his synoptic account of our literary past and present does not come draped in post-post-early-for-Christmas theorising. What the book will do is to show us again our literary origins as the prominent, the neglected, the forgotten and the unfashionable books are dusted off and shown in a new light. Although I sorely wish Jean François’ book existed when I studied Australian literature at university, his brief take is much more than a undergraduate primer. A Brief Take on the Australian Novel will open up new reading choices and shows in a lively, engaged manner the diversity, vigour and relevance of the Australian novel.

Jean François Vernay lives in New Caledonia and will appear at this year’s Sydney Writer’s Festival.

Lian Hingee is reading The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I’m a bit late to the party on The Ghost Bride, as it came out a few years ago and somehow slipped under my radar. I can’t understand how because it’s got everything I love in a book: a good mystery, a bit of romance, some fantastical elements, and a grounding in history and folklore. Li Lan’s family has fallen on hard times, and consequently her prospects for making a good marriage are fading fast. Then the influential Lim family approaches her with a proposition: become the ‘ghost bride’ of their recently deceased son and she’ll want for nothing for the rest of her life. Horrified by the suggestion, Li Lan refuses. But the shade of Lim Tian Chiang isn’t easily dissuaded and Li Lan soon finds herself battling against a ghostly suitor who’s clearly not used to hearing the word ‘no’.

Based in colonial Malaysia, The Ghost Bride borrows heavily from Chinese mythology and using superstition that was rife in the late nineteenth century to seamlessly blend history and fantasy together. My own family is Chinese, so I’m finding it really enjoyable to read a novel where the fantastical elements are appropriated from the East and informed by Chinese traditions and spirituality.

Isobel Moore is reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Despite having worked in kids books for about five years now, I had never read the the towering YA mountain that is Cassandra Clare. But with the release of the first book in a new series set in the world of the Shadowhunter Chronicles, and yet another new series on the horizon, I thought I should knuckle down and give her books a crack. So this week I grabbed the first part of her Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones. And I totally loved it! The book is good cracking fun, and a nice meaty length which, as someone who reads irritatingly quickly, I certainly appreciated. I’m already halfway through the second book, City of Ashes, which is even better. I’m looking forwards to spending the next few weeks immersing myself in Clare’s world.

Bronte Coates is listening to Witch Please

My colleague Nina gifts me amazing pop culture recommendations all the time, and most recently she put me on to Witch Please – a fortnightly podcast about the Harry Potter world by smart, sassy lady scholars Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman. While I don’t agree with all their arguments, I’m always engaged and fascinated by their insights gained from a close readings of these texts. Some of them are brilliantly on point and hilarious (Gary-Oldman-as-Sirius’ sex eyes!) and others are genuinely horrifying (Umbridge and the centaurs). I’m relishing being back in the world of Hogwarts, and have to resist bringing my new thoughts on Harry Potter up at every possible opportunity. (I rarely succeed.)